Howtobuildan AFIS
Howtobuildan AFIS
net/publication/260739557
CITATION READS
1 2,151
4 authors, including:
All content following this page was uploaded by Sarah Irum on 01 February 2016.
Abstract—Fingerprint based identification is becoming increas- treatment or prescription which could be possible in sim-
ingly useful and cost effective now a days to tackle growing trend ple computerized record evolving data entry mistakes. Other
of identity theft, repeat offenses, authentication frauds, medical applications of AFIS include authentication of employees in
malpractices, and unlawful access & permissions. This paper
provides a historical background on the evolution of fingerprint different organizations.
technology and detailed the salient feature such system should This paper is organised in the following sections. Section I
possess to meet the contemporary technical challenges. This introduces the AFIS system. Section II presents a background
work also presents the industry landscape of commercial and of the biometric information based identification and corre-
non-commercial biometrics market and a selected list of its
sponding advent of AFIS. In section III we briefly discuss
various applications. The paper conclude with a demonstration
of building an open-source AFIS from scratch and the required the main characteristics/features a modern AFIS should entail.
phases and research work needed to build such a solution. AFIS standards are listed in section IV. In section V, a review
Index Terms—Image Processing, AFIS, Feature extraction, of the commercial and non-commercial AFIS related SDKs
Feature matching is presented. Section VI discusses the major phases and their
corresponding activities which would be required to develop a
I. I NTRODUCTION holistic, large-scale and end-to-end AFIS solution. In section
Developing countries in the world face the technology VII, we present a brief overview of the work done on research
challenges to deal with the surge of terrorism, unlawful and development of eAFIS (Efficient Automated Fingerprint
activities, crimes, target killings, and absence of transparency Identification System) for Civil and Criminal applications
from daily businesses of government and private ventures. As based on open-source AFIS tools. This paper ends with a
the population growth rate increases rapidly the developing summary regarding the work done.
countries badly need the self-reliance on identity management
technologies to take care of terrorism and unlawful activities II. BACKGROUND
and keep an account of their growing population and to bring In the late nineteenth century a Parisian police clerk
the transparency in all government and commercial systems. Alphonse Bertillon invented a system called Bertillon system
Identity Management & Biometrics with its most used form that relied primarily on an elaborate set of eleven carefully
of fingerprint identification has been used in few countries recorded anatomical measurements - the length and width of
for over a decade now in many forms. National Database the head, length of the left middle finger, the distance from
Registration Authority (NADRA) is using it to account for the left elbow to the tip of the left middle finger, and so on
adult population; National Police Bureau under the flagship [13]. The system was a great success in enabling to catch
of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is using it to keep the repeat offenders. The beauty of the system was to be able to
tally of criminals, to prevent and punish the repeat offenders, code the features in ”one collective number”, to be able to
and several other law enforcement agencies are using it for massively search and narrow down the possible matches.
purposes including border control, passport issuance, issuance As Bertillon system was gaining popularity, Sir Francis
of driving licenses and for visa inquiries etc. Galton (The Galton point is termed after his name) discovered
In Biometric based identification systems, fingerprints are the sui generis nature of human fingerprints [13]. He wrote
most cost effective as well as reliable. For this reason, AFIS the master piece ”Finger Prints” in 1892. In 1893, the Home
deployment is getting common in developing countries. In Ministry Office, UK, endorsed that no two individual have
many countries, AFIS has been used in election for identifica- same fingerprints [13]. Galton’s system works on the method
tion for legitimate voters and for criminals AFIS used by law- of exclusion, when we find even a single dissimilarity we
enforcement agencies to verify them with the help of latent call it a ”mismatch”. And to be able to ”match” the prints
prints. it should match on multiple points Rigs, Forks, Minutiae
Hospitals are also adopting AFIS for patient and physician etc. The United Kingdom and Pakistan have been using 9
verification to ensure authorized access to medical records and points system, Italy has been using 12 points, US varies state
facilities. This also eliminates the chance of wrong diagnostics, by state from 9 to 15. A difficulty with this system is the
41
IV. AFIS S TANDARDS case of fingerprint matching [13]. A lot of research has
The AFIS system should be able to support the following been carried out in improving the efficiency and quality of
data encoding standards for various types of data it is supposed each of these processes as mentioned by Davide et al. in
to handle: [13]. A lot of these techniques for each of the processes
mentioned above have been implemented in the open-source
• ISO/IEC 19794-2:2005 (Fingerprint Minutiae Data)
domain and are available for free in the form of open-source
• ISO/IEC 19794-4:2005 (Finger Image Data)
SDKs (or corresponding application programming interfaces
• ANSI/INCITS 378-2004 (Finger Minutiae Format for
i.e. APIs). Similarly there are many commercial organiza-
Data Interchange)
tions which have provide such SDKs (or APIs) providing
• ANSI/INCITS 381-2004 (Finger Image-Based Data In-
required functionality to perform/implement all the processes
terchange Format)
related to fingerprint enrollment and matching. Using such
The AFIS system should also support the following match- commercial/non-commercial SDKs (or APIs) custom designed
ing techniques: AFIS solutions can be easily developed for a variety of
• Latent print to latent print domains. Then there are organizations which provide end-
• Ten-print to latent print to-end biometrics (mainly fingerprints) based solutions with
• Latent print to ten-print complete functionality and user interface. These solutions
• Ten-print to ten-print can be customized according to the client’s needs. In this
• Live print to latent print section we give a brief overview of such commercial and
• Latent print to live print non-commercial SDKs which are available together with end-
• Ten-print to live print to-end commercial products. We begin with open-source/non-
• Live print to ten-print commercial tools. First is the SourceAFIS which is an open-
• Live print to live print source SDK for .Net developers (an experimental version is
Latent prints are the prints taken from the crime scene. Ten- also available for Java) [6]. It provides an easy-to-use API with
prints are taken from the arrested criminal on Ten-print card detailed documentation for C#/.Net and experimentally for
and then further scanned to the system. Live prints are taken Java. It provides functionality for both fingerprint verification
from the arrested criminal on fingerprint scanners. Latent print and identification [6]. It has good accuracy (independently
to latent print matching is a search of a latent from a crime tested accuracy of 3.6% EER (equal error rate)) and has a
scene against latents on file from other crime scenes. Ten-print matching speed of 10,000 fingerprints/second. It can accept
to ten-print matching is a search of a set of known fingerprints and export ISO/IEC 19794-2 templates. It also includes tools
(ten-prints) against an existing ten-print database. Ten-print to for fingerprint visualization and analysis. The only shortfall
latent print matching is a search of a new ten-print addition is that it does not have an acquisition module both from
to the database against all unsolved latent prints in file. AFIS live scanners and from standard ten-print cards and takes
matching system should be compatible to all types of input fingerprint images as input [6]. Next is the BioMetric SDK
prints. that can match (identify) people through their fingerprints [7].
The other important feature is how many different queries It is currently available in C# though the author mentions that
the system can support at one time, and what is the con- his goal is to make this SDK available in C++ and Java as
nectivity and bandwidth requirements in case of a remote well. It also does not have a fingerprint acquisition module
system connects to the central site. Number of users who and takes fingerprint images as input [7]. Next is the Free
can connect at parallel, disaster recovery, management, and Fingerprint Verification SDK provided by Neurotechnology for
planning should be given due consideration as well. Figure C#. Though it has live fingerprint acquisition and verification
1 gives an overview of the workflow of an AFIS system capabilities, it otherwise provides very limited functionality for
deployed in a typical Law Enforcement agency. independent storage of acquired images and allows storage of
data related to only ten users at a time [1].
V. R EVIEW OF AFIS SDK S Tables I presents a comparison of the various features
Globally AFIS has a 2.6 Billion USD market with an supported by the non-commercial and commercial fingerprint
average growth of 20% per year. The biometrics market related SDKs reviewed above. The features include processing
(other than AFIS) for attendance and authentication services (enrollment and matching etc) support for fingerprints obtained
is another 1.34 Billion USD with an annual growth of 31%. via various means such as from live-scanning (support for live-
Given the cost and the requirements of growing population scanning means support for both the method of acquisition and
and technological savvy inventions, more than 30 countries for images obtained from this method), from ten-print cards
are developing their own AFIS systems. and latent-prints which are obtained from crime scenes etc.
Fingerprint enrollment and matching involve many pro- Similarly the ability of the SDKs to support both the rolled
cesses which include image acquisition followed by fingerprint and flat fingerprints is also shown. These tables also present a
segmentation, image enhancement, feature extraction, template comparison of the support provided by the SDKs for the two
creation, fingerprint classification, template storage (in the most commonly used programming languages/frameworks i.e.
case of fingerprint enrollment) or template matching in the .Net and Java, the two most commonly used operating systems
42
Fig. 1. Sample AFIS setup
i.e. Windows and Linux, the most commonly used fingerprint fingerprint acquisition and matching but not the fingerprint
image compression method i.e. WSQ compression and one of extraction from the standard ten-print cards or latents. WSQ
the most commonly used databases i.e. Oracle. SDK allows one to add compression, decompression and
fingerprint image exchange capabilities into your AFIS systems
TABLE I [5]. Griaule AFIS ActiveX library is supported by all IDEs that
C OMPARISON OF VARIOUS FEATURES SUPPORTED BY THE REVIEWED
NON - COMMERCIAL AFIS RELATED SDK S . fully support ActiveX. It was fully tested with Visual Basic 6,
Delphi and Visual Studio .NET, which are the most commonly
Supporting Features SourceAFIS BioMetric FreeFingerprint used IDEs for Windows. It should also work with MATLAB,
LiveScan LabView, PowerBuilder, Ruby and VBScript etc [5]. Cost of
Ten-print Griaule AFIS SDK is $450.
Latent ExpressID AFIS by Innovatrics (Slovakian) provides a
Flat matching server which can be composed of several nodes.
Rolled Each node can match upto 150,00,00 fingerprints/second. It
WSQ also provides an SDK for development of client-side applica-
Dot Net tion with customer specific GUI [3]. Innovatrics provides two
Java more SDKs with the name IDKit PC SDK for PCs and IDKit
Windows Mobile SDK for mobiles [3]. IDKit PC SDK provides func-
Linux tionality for fingerprint identification with a matching speed
of 200,000 fingerprint/second. IDKit Mobile SDK provides
Next we discuss the commercially available AFIS related the facility of matching 40,000 fingerprints/second on Intel
SDKs. First are the SDKs provided by Griaule (a company (Marvel) PXA270 @ 624MHz [3]. All the three SDKs support
based in USA) i.e. Fingerprint SDK, AFIS SDK and WSQ SDK wide range of live scanners. It was mentioned that ExpressID
[5]. Fingerprint SDK enables a wide range of applications to AFIS can handle a database of fingerprints from ten-print cards
use fingerprint recognition. Software developers can integrate but we did not find a mention of any extraction/detection
biometrics into their software as programming languages, functionality for fingerprints from ten-print cards. ExpressID
stand-alone applications and web applications as needed - AFIS does not support palmprints and does not support
all through a single, intuitive interface [5]. AFIS SDK helps matching of partial, latent prints from crime scenes, against
to build an Automated Fingerprint Identification System by the database of ten-prints [3]. The cost of ExpressID SDK is
providing extended feature detection/extraction functionality, $1273.
manual image analysis functionality and compatibility with MegaMatcher SDK is a Neurotechnology (USA based) prod-
a wide range of sensors. Both of theses SDKs support live uct.The SDK is available in a Standard and an Extended ver-
43
sion. After live-scanning template creation takes 0.2-0.25 sec- TABLE II
C OMPARISON OF VARIOUS FEATURES SUPPORTED BY THE REVIEWED
onds. The Standard version provides the facility of matching COMMERCIAL AFIS RELATED SDK S .
35 million fingerprints/second. The Extended version provides
the matching capability of 100 million fingerprints/second [2]. Supporting Features Griaule ExpressID
The cost of MegaMatcher SDK is $3473. LiveScan
Sonda Tech is a Russian company which provides two Latent
commercial fingerprint SDKs. First is the Sonda Forensic SDK Ten-print
1.0 which is specially designed for development of Biometric Flat
Civil and Criminal applications in Windows environment Rolled
[4]. Second is the Sonda SE SDK 3.2 which also provides Palm
fingerprint identification facility but is not specific to Civil Crime Scene
and Criminal applications. Sonda Forensic SDK 1.0 provides WSQ
processing of fingerprints, latents and palms for extraction Dot Net
of general and particular features (and construction of the Windows
template) [4]. It also provides estimation of image quality, Java
and comparison of all types of fingerprints and palm-prints Linux
information: ten-print to ten-print, latent to ten-print, ten- Auxiliary Images
print to latent, latent to latent, live to live etc. Moreover it Interoperability
provides the functionality of automatic segmentation/detection
Adaptability
of fingerprints in the ten-print cards including the rolled prints
1-to-1 Fingerprint
and also from the slap-prints (complete four-finger and palm
1-to-N Fingerprints
prints). All in all it provides a comprehensive set of functions
Ten-print - Latent
which can be easily used to build an efficient and automatic
Latent - Ten-print
Criminal or Civil AFIS. Moreover Sonda Tech provides end-
Ten-print - Ten-print
to-end AFIS solutions as well customized according to the
Latent - Latent
client’s requirements [4].
Configurable Template Size
Table II and III indicate the support provided by the SDKs
Other Devices Support
for matching of fingerprints acquired via various means with
each other e.g. matching of Latent to Ten-print etc.
VI. D ESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PHASES OF AN AFIS tailed study of the state-of-the-art research in the domain of
Following is a sequential list of phases and the activities fingerprint recognition and selection of best techniques for
associated with each of them required for the development of image enhancement, feature extraction, template creation and
an end-to-end, holistic and largescale AFIS application: fingerprint matching. An efficient and accurate algorithm can
be proposed on the basis of the research on existing AFIS
A. Phase-1: Problem analysis, research and planning
algorithms. AFIS complete solution includes following steps:
Following activities are performed in Phase-1: Initial anal-
• Image Acquisition
ysis of the problem and a broad activity plan is carried out.
Team setup and responsibilities to each member are assigned. Fingerprint image can be acquired by live scanning or scanning
The detailed study of the available fingerprint capturing and ten-print cards. It includes the development of fingerprint
matching technologies and their associated Software Develop- capture algorithm that can capture image from fingerprint
ment Kits (SDKs) if available is carried out. Analysis includes scanners and also scans image from ten-print cards. This step
the survey of the fingerprint capturing devices i.e. fingerprints also includes the quality check of image. As these images are
scanners and survey of live scanning and offline scanning of stored and then further processed for matching.
fingerprints. Plan of AFIS software development is formulized. • Image Enhancement
Complete documentation of AFIS system such as system Image enhancement is an essential step in the development
architecture plan and specification (including specifications of of AFIS solution. To increase the speed of AFIS system,
all hardware components to be purchased for the system such fingerprint images are enhanced using different algorithms.
as, biometrics sensors. Research phase also includes research
• Features Extraction
on recent algorithms, open source SDKs, sensors and short
listing of useful open source SDKs which could provide useful In the step of feature extraction, fingerprint features are
APIs for the development of complete solution. extracted from the enhanced image. Matching is performed
on the extracted features.
B. Phase-2: Design, development of fingerprint algorithms
• Matching
and their fine-tuning
The final step of AFIS solution is matching of fingerprints.
Following activities will be performed in Phase-2: Design
Matching algorithm should be able to match between different
and development of fingerprint algorithms includes the de-
types of images i.e ten-print to latent print, ten-print to live
44
TABLE III will also be developed followed by the development of an
C OMPARISON OF VARIOUS FEATURES SUPPORTED BY THE REVIEWED
COMMERCIAL AFIS RELATED SDK S .
automated test-bed for integrated testing.
45
• Manual entry of demographic information as shown in
Fig. 4
• Administrator/User Login as shown in Fig. 2 to restrict Fig. 5. Live fingerprint and face acquisition
the access to the application to only the people with
access permissions. After User Login the main screen
appears as shown in Fig. 3 from which the user can select
an operation he/she wants to perform
• Fingerprint information entry via live-scanning (with the
option of acquiring single, dual or ten fingerprints) as
shown in Fig. 5
• Fingerprint information entry via ten-print cards:
46
Fig. 10. Searching based on user ID
Fig. 7. Verification based on live fingerprint scanning
47