Singular point detection using Discrete Hodge Helmholtz Decomposition in fingerprint images

Identification of singular points in the ridge structure is an important problem in fingerprint matching. This paper presents a fingerprint singular point detection method that is applicable to various fingerprint images regardless of their resolutions. Using the Discrete Hodge Helmholtz Decomposition (DHHD) method, potential structures of singular points can be extracted. We also calculate Poincare Index (PI) of the image. Then we combine DHHD and PI to detect singular points. The result of the experiment on the public databases with different images demonstrates that the proposed method has high accuracy in locating singular points.