Fingerprint classification combining curvelet transform and gray-level cooccurrence matrix

Fingerprint classification is an important indexing scheme to reduce fingerprint matching time for a large database for efficient large-scale identification. The abilities of Curvelet transform capturing directional edges of fingerprint images make the fingerprint suitable to be classified for higher classification accuracy. This paper presents an efficient algorithm for fingerprint classification combining Curvelet transform (CT) and gray-level cooccurrence matrix (GLCM). Firstly, we use fast discrete Curvelet transform warping (FDCT_WARPING) to decompose the original image into five scales Curvelet coefficients and construct the Curvelet filter by Curvelet coefficients relationship at adjacent scales to remove the noise from signals. Secondly, we compute the GLCMs of Curvelet coefficients at the coarsest scale and calculate 16 texture features based on 4 GLCMs. Thirdly, we construct 49 direction features of Curvelet coefficients at the other four scales. Finally, fingerprint classification is accomplished by K-nearest neighbor classifiers. Extensive experiments were performed on 4000 images in the NIST-4 database. The proposed algorithm achieves the classification accuracy of 94.6 percent for the five-class classification problem and 96.8 percent for the four-class classification problem with 1.8 percent rejection, respectively. The experimental results verify that proposed algorithm has higher recognition rate than that of wavelet-based techniques.