Morphological and gradient based fingerprint image segmentation

For personal identification the use of fingerprint identification systems is mostly common. First step for an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) is the segmentation of fingerprint from the acquired image. Extraction of region of interest (ROI) from the desired fingerprint impression is the main purpose of segmentation. In this paper, we present a new technique for fingerprint segmentation using morphological operations and modified gradient based technique. The distinct feature of our technique is that it gives high accuracy for fingerprint segmentation even for low quality fingerprint images. The proposed algorithm is applied on standard fingerprint databases, FVC2002 and FVC2004. Experimental results demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed scheme.