Singular point detection in fingerprint images: An investigation on quantization approach

This paper presents a quantization approach to the detection of singular points in fingerprint images. Singular points in fingerprint images referred to the core and delta points. They are the global features found in the orientation field image of a fingerprint. A singular point is normally detected at the intersection of three gray levels of a quantized orientation field image at quantization level-3 but no study has been carried out for higher quantization level. In this paper, the singular point detection has been investigated up to quantization level-8 by employing two performance measures: sensitivity and precision. The performance at level-5 has been found to be optimal when both measures are combined.