Finger surface as a biometric identifier

We present a novel approach for personal identification and identity verification which utilizes 3D finger surface features as a biometric identifier. Using 3D range images of the hand, a surface representation for the index, middle, and ring finger is calculated and used for comparison to determine subject similarity. We use the curvature based shape index to represent the fingers surface. Gallery and probe shape index signatures are compared using the normalized correlation coefficient to compute a match score. A large unique database of hand images supports the research. We use data sets obtained over time to examine the performance of each individual finger surface as a biometric identifier as well as the performance obtained when combining them. Both identification and verification experiments are conducted. In addition, probe and gallery sets sizes are increased to further improve recognition performance in our experiments. Our approach yields good results for a first-of-its-kind biometric technique, indicating that this approach warrants further research. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.