An efficient color and texture based iris image retrieval technique

This paper proposes a hierarchical approach to retrieve an iris image efficiently from for a large iris database. This approach is a combination of both iris color and texture. Iris color is used for indexing and texture is used for retrieval of iris images from the indexed iris database. An index which is determined from the iris color is used to filter out the images that are not similar to the query image in color. Further, iris texture features of those filtered images, are used to determine the images which are similar to the query image. The iris color information helps to design an efficient indexing scheme based on color indices. The color indices are computed by averaging the intensity values of all red and blue color pixels. Kd-tree is used for real-time indexing based on color indices. The iris texture features are obtained through Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF) algorithm. These features are used to get the query’s corresponding image at the top best match. The performance of the proposed indexing scheme is compared with two well known iris indexing schemes ( [Mehrotra et al., 2010] and [Puhan and Sudha, 2008]) on UPOL (Dobeš, Machala, Tichavský, & Posp?´šil, 2004) and UBIRIS (Proencca & Alexandre, 2005) iris databases. It is observed that combination of iris color and texture improves the performance of iris recognition system.     

由粗到精的虹膜图像离焦模糊评价方法

离焦模糊评价在虹膜识别系统中尤为重要。传统的方法是通过频谱分析测量虹膜图像的离焦模糊程度,这类方法容易受到光照变化以及睫毛和眼皮等噪声区域的影响。提出了一种由粗到精的虹膜图像离焦模糊评价方法。第一步,通过频谱分析去除严重模糊的虹膜图像,进行虹膜图像离焦模糊粗分类。第二步,通过方向金字塔分解,提取虹膜图像的质量特征。在人工合成的离焦模糊虹膜图像数据库中,利用径向基神经网络建立起质量特征与质量等级间的对应关系。通过建立起的模型进行实际的虹膜图像离焦模糊等级预测,以及虹膜图像离焦模糊精分类。在Clarkson数据库上的实验结果证明了该方法不仅可以准确区分清晰图像和离焦模糊图像,而且相比于传统的虹膜图像离焦评价方法更接近于人的视觉感知。     

Efficient iris segmentation method in unconstrained environments

Recently, iris recognition systems have gained increased attention especially in non-cooperative environments. One of the crucial steps in the iris recognition system is the iris segmentation because it significantly affects the accuracy of the feature extraction and iris matching steps. Traditional iris segmentation methods provide excellent results when iris images are captured using near infrared cameras under ideal imaging conditions, but the accuracy of these algorithms significantly decreases when the iris images are taken in visible wavelength under non-ideal imaging conditions. In this paper, a new algorithm is proposed to segments iris images captured in visible wavelength under unconstrained environments. The proposed algorithm reduces the error percentage even in the presence of types of noise include iris obstructions and specular reflection. The proposed algorithm starts with determining the expected region of the iris using the K-means clustering algorithm. The Circular Hough Transform (CHT) is then employed in order to estimate the iris radius and center. A new efficient algorithm is developed to detect and isolate the upper eyelids. Finally, the non-iris regions are removed. Results of applying the proposed algorithm on UBIRIS iris image databases demonstrate that it improves the segmentation accuracy and time.     

区域注意力机制引导的双路虹膜补全

目的 虹膜识别是一种稳定可靠的生物识别技术,但虹膜图像的采集过程会受到多种干扰造成图像中虹膜被遮挡,比如光斑遮挡、上下眼皮遮挡等。这些遮挡的存在,一方面会导致虹膜信息缺失,直接影响虹膜识别的准确性,另一方面会影响预处理(如定位、分割)的准确性,间接影响虹膜识别的准确性。为解决上述问题,本文提出区域注意力机制引导的双路虹膜补全网络,通过遮挡区域的像素补齐,可以显著减少被遮挡区域对虹膜图像预处理和识别的影响,进而提升识别性能。方法 使用基于Transformer的编码器和基于卷积神经网络(convolutional neural network, CNN)的编码器提取虹膜特征,通过融合模块将两种不同编码器提取的特征进行交互结合,并利用区域注意力机制分别处理低层和高层特征,最后利用解码器对处理后的特征进行上采样,恢复遮挡区域,生成完整图像。结果 在CASIA(Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences)虹膜数据集上对本文方法进行测试。在虹膜识别性能方面,本文方法在固定遮挡大小为64×64像素的情况下,遮挡补全结果的TAR(true...     

渐进式虹膜图像质量评估模型

虹膜图像质量评估目前尚无统一评估标准,导致虹膜识别拒识率和误识率较高。针对该问题,提出一种虹膜图像质量评估模型。根据虹膜图像中各干扰因素的不同特点,在先验知识基础上采用区域化、加权的方法,渐近式地实施像素级质量评估,依据像素级评估结果实施图像级质量评估。实验结果表明,像素级虹膜图像质量评估中的虹膜图像干扰项识别率和模糊识别率较高,图像级虹膜图像质量评估与人工评估结果相一致。     

一种虹膜图像的质量评价算法

在虹膜识别系统中,质量较差的虹膜图像可能被系统拒识,导致身份识别或身份认证的失败。因此有必要在虹膜图像的采集端引入质量评价环节,从虹膜图像采集仪输出的视频序列中挑选出符合识别系统要求的虹膜图像。首先提出了一种快速的基于连通域分析的瞳孔定位方法,然后在此基础上,针对具有散焦模糊和眼皮睫毛遮挡的虹膜图像,提出了一种分步式的虹膜图像质量评价算法。实验结果表明,该算法能够有效地筛选出符合要求的虹膜图像。     

Iris image reconstruction from binary templates: An efficient probabilistic approach based on genetic algorithms

A binary iriscode is a very compact representation of an iris image. For a long time it was assumed that the iriscode did not contain enough information to allow for the reconstruction of the original iris. The present work proposes a novel probabilistic approach based on genetic algorithms to reconstruct iris images from binary templates and analyzes the similarity between the reconstructed synthetic iris image and the original one. The performance of the reconstruction technique is assessed by empirically estimating the probability of successfully matching the synthesized iris image against its true counterpart using a commercial matcher. The experimental results indicate that the reconstructed images look reasonably realistic. While a human expert may not be easily deceived by them, they can successfully deceive a commercial matcher. Furthermore, since the proposed methodology is able to synthesize multiple iris images from a single iriscode, it has other potential applications including privacy enhancement of iris-based systems.     

Efficient and robust segmentation of noisy iris images for non-cooperative iris recognition

This paper describes the winning algorithm we submitted to the recent NICE.I iris recognition contest. Efficient and robust segmentation of noisy iris images is one of the bottlenecks for non-cooperative iris recognition. To address this problem, a novel iris segmentation algorithm is proposed in this paper. After reflection removal, a clustering based coarse iris localization scheme is first performed to extract a rough position of the iris, as well as to identify non-iris regions such as eyelashes and eyebrows. A novel integrodifferential constellation is then constructed for the localization of pupillary and limbic boundaries, which not only accelerates the traditional integrodifferential operator but also enhances its global convergence. After that, a curvature model and a prediction model are learned to deal with eyelids and eyelashes, respectively. Extensive experiments on the challenging UBIRIS iris image databases demonstrate that encouraging accuracy is achieved by the proposed algorithm which is ranked the best performing algorithm in the recent open contest on iris recognition (the Noisy Iris Challenge Evaluation, NICE.I).     

虹膜纹理编码身份识别技术

利用人眼特征进行身份识别的技术作为新兴的身份鉴定方法已开始用于网络交易,银行,海关等机构,本文就人眼身份识别的关键技术－虹膜纹理编码进行了讨论。作者通过分析影响识别性能的几个关键问题,提出了傅利叶－小波混合变换法对虹膜编码,并给出了在利用编码结果组成的数据库对输入图像进行快速匹配或查询的方法。实验结果表明该方法能有效地降低图像采集时平移,旋转,反光带来的编码误差。     

一种虹膜图像质量评价的方法

虹膜图像质量是影响虹膜识别系统精度的关键。从序列图像中挑选出符合要求的虹膜图像能有效地降低识别系统的拒识率和误识率。这里按照产生虹膜图像奇异的不同情形：失焦、运动模糊、眼睑遮挡及睫毛遮挡,充分利用虹膜自身的纹理分布特点,在算法中引入了评价区域局部化、小波包分解和能量加权等思想,分别设计相应算法加以评判。实验结果表明该评价方案快速有效,其评价结果和人眼主观评价相吻合。     

基于Log-Gabor滤波的虹膜识别系统

在已有虹膜识别研究成果的基础上,提出基于Log-Gabor滤波的虹膜身份识别图像系统。该系统利用Matlab平台结合一维Log-Gabor滤波器对归一化后的虹膜进行滤波并提取纹理特征,然后对纹理特征进行相位编码,并用汉明距离进行虹膜匹配,匹配时采用干扰掩模屏蔽虹膜预处理过程中的噪音。本文结合CASIA虹膜图像数据库进行实验论证,其结果表明该系统误判率为0.125%,拒判率为0.05%,达到较好的识别效果。     

Comparison and combination of iris matchers for reliable personal authentication

The personal identification approaches using iris images are receiving increasing attention in the biometrics literature. Several methods have been presented in the literature and those based on the phase encoding of texture information are suggested to be the most promising. However, there has not been any attempt to combine these approaches to achieve further improvement in the performance. This paper presents a comparative study of the performance from the iris authentication using Log-Gabor, Haar wavelet, DCT and FFT based features. Our experimental results suggest that the performance from the Haar wavelet and Log-Gabor filter based phase encoding is the most promising among all the four approaches considered in this work. Therefore, the combination of these two matchers is most promising, both in terms of performance and the computational complexity. Our experimental results from the all 411 users (CASIA v3) and 224 users (IITD v1) database illustrate significant improvement in the performance which is not possible with either of these approaches individually.     

基于二维正交滤波的虹膜识别算法

提出一种针对灰度虹膜图像进行虹膜特征提取及匹配的方法,其利用四元数二维正交Log Gabor小波提取虹膜图像的纹理特征,以滤波后图像的解析信号作为虹膜的特征编码.该方法可以同时表征虹膜纹理多方向上的特征,更加全面地描述了虹膜纹理的特征空间.特征匹配采用类似汉明距的方式,同时以虹膜图像中眼睑、睫毛以及光斑的分布为匹配模版来减少它们的干扰.大量实验的结果表明该方法具有非常优越的识别性能.     

An effective approach for iris recognition using phase-based image matching

This paper presents an efficient algorithm for iris recognition using phase-based image matching --- an image matching technique using phase components in 2D Discrete Fourier Transforms (DFTs) of given images. Experimental evaluation using CASIA iris image databases (ver. 1.0 and ver. 2.0) and Iris Challenge Evaluation (ICE) 2005 database clearly demonstrates that the use of phase components of iris images makes possible to achieve highly accurate iris recognition with a simple matching algorithm. This paper also discusses major implementation issues of our algorithm. In order to reduce the size of iris data and to prevent the visibility of iris images, we introduce the idea of 2D Fourier Phase Code (FPC) for representing iris information. 2D FPC is particularly useful for implementing compact iris recognition devices using state-of-the-art DSP (Digital Signal Processing) technology.     

A highly accurate and computationally efficient approach for unconstrained iris segmentation

Biometric research has experienced significant advances in recent years given the need for more stringent security requirements. More important is the need to overcome the rigid constraints necessitated by the practical implementation of sensible but effective security methods such as iris recognition. An inventive iris acquisition method with less constrained image taking conditions can impose minimal to no constraints on the iris verification and identification process as well as on the subject. Consequently, to provide acceptable measures of accuracy, it is critical for such an iris recognition system to be complemented by a robust iris segmentation approach to overcome various noise effects introduced through image capture under different recording environments and scenarios. This research introduces a robust and fast segmentation approach towards less constrained iris recognition using noisy images contained in the UBIRIS.v2 database (the second version of the UBIRIS noisy iris database). The proposed algorithm consists of five steps, which include: (1) detecting the approximate localization of the eye area of the noisy image captured at the visible wavelength using the extracted sclera area, (2) defining the outer iris boundary which is the boundary between iris and sclera, (3) detecting the upper and lower eyelids, (4) conducting the verification and correction for outer iris boundary detection and (5) detecting the pupil area and eyelashes and providing means for verification of the reliability of the segmentation results. The results demonstrate that the accuracy is estimated as 98% when using 500 randomly selected images from the UBIRIS.v2 partial database, and estimated at ?97%$97\%$ in a “Noisy Iris Challenge Evaluation (NICE.I)” in an international competition that involved 97 participants worldwide, ranking this research group in sixth position. This accuracy is achieved with a processing speed nearing real time.     

虹膜图像质量评价综述

虹膜图像质量评价是虹膜识别系统中重要的模块,通过评价低质量虹膜样本的综合质量来提升虹膜识别的性能。虹膜图像质量评价与图像获取、人机交互系统、识别性能预测以及自适应虹膜识别算法设计等密切相关。近年来,随着低图像质量的鲁棒虹膜识别系统不断发展,虹膜图像质量评价得到了广泛研究。为了使该领域的研究人员充分了解当前虹膜图像质量评价算法,本文对已有的方法进行了综述。回顾了虹膜图像质量评价算法的发展历程,阐述了其典型应用,进而展望了虹膜图像质量评价算法以及以质量为导向的虹膜识别技术的发展。     

基于虹膜纹理深度特征和Fisher向量的人种分类

目的 虹膜是位于人眼表面黑色瞳孔和白色巩膜之间的圆环形区域,有着丰富的纹理信息。虹膜纹理具有高度的区分性和稳定性。人种分类是解决虹膜识别在大规模数据库上应用难题的主要方法之一。现有的虹膜图像人种分类方法主要采用手工设计的特征,而且针对亚洲人和非亚洲人的基本人种分类,无法很好地解决亚种族分类问题。为此提出一种基于虹膜纹理深度特征和Fisher向量的人种分类方法。方法 首先用CNN（convolutional neural network）对归一化后的虹膜纹理图像提取深度特征向量,作为底层特征;然后使用高斯混合模型提取Fisher向量作为最终的虹膜特征表达;最后用支持向量机分类得到最终结果。结果 本文方法在亚洲人和非亚洲人的数据集上采用non-person-disjoint的方式取得99.93%的准确率,采用person-disjoint的方式取得91.94%的准确率;在汉族人和藏族人的数据集上采用non-person-disjoint的方式取得99.69%的准确率,采用person-disjoint的方式取得82.25%的准确率。结论 本文通过数据驱动的方式从训练数据中学习到更适合人种分类的特征,可以很好地实现对基本人种以及亚种族人种的分类,提高了人种分类的精度。同时也首次证明了用虹膜图像进行亚种族分类的可行性,对人种分类理论进行了进一步地丰富和完善。     

Iris detection using intensity and edge information

In this paper we propose a new algorithm to detect the irises of both eyes from a face image. The algorithm first detects the face region in the image and then extracts intensity valleys from the face region. Next, the algorithm extracts iris candidates from the valleys using the feature template of Lin and Wu (IEEE Trans. Image Process. 8 (6) (1999) 834) and the separability filter of Fukui and Yamaguchi (Trans. IEICE Japan J80-D-II (8) (1997) 2170). Finally, using the costs for pairs of iris candidates proposed in this paper, the algorithm selects a pair of iris candidates corresponding to the irises. The costs are computed by using Hough transform, separability filter and template matching. As the results of the experiments, the iris detection rate of the proposed algorithm was 95.3% for 150 face images of 15 persons without spectacles in the database of University of Bern and 96.8% for 63 images of 21 persons without spectacles in the AR database.     

DADCNet: Dual attention densely connected network for more accurate real iris region segmentation

Most existing performance evaluation standards for iris segmentation algorithms, such as the typical recall, precision, and F-measure (RPF-measure) protocol, are based on a pixel-to-pixel comparison between the mask image obtained after segmentation and the corresponding ground truth (GT) image. However, one of the most important problems is that if the published GT images have errors when locating the iris region, then the reference value of these evaluation indicators will be reduced, which is not conducive to the development of iris recognition technology. To address this problem, this paper proposes to use a mask image segmented by a deep learning method to replace the corresponding GT image. The main work of this paper is as follows. First, a dual attention densely connected network (DADCNet) containing two attention modules and an improved skip connection is proposed to segment the real iris region more accurately than the corresponding GT image. Second, the recognition performance of the two input classes obtained from the mask image after DADCNet segmentation and the corresponding published GT image in the same recognition network is utilized to further show that the former is more reliable in positioning the real iris than the latter. To make the proposed network more convincing, extensive experiments are conducted on four representative and challenging iris databases, which is obtained under different spectral conditions. These results show that the proposed DADCNet achieves state-of-the-art performance and that the mask image obtained after DADCNet segmentation can replace the published corresponding GT image.     

Coarse iris classification using box-counting to estimate fractal dimensions

This paper proposes a novel algorithm for the automatic coarse classification of iris images using a box-counting method to estimate the fractal dimensions of the iris. First, the iris image is segmented into sixteen blocks, eight belonging to an upper group and eight to a lower group. We then calculate the fractal dimension value of these image blocks and take the mean value of the fractal dimension as the upper and the lower group fractal dimensions. Finally, all the iris images are classified into four categories in accordance with the upper and the lower group fractal dimensions. This classification method has been tested and evaluated on 872 iris cases, and the proportions of these categories in our database are 5.50%, 38.54%, 21.79%, and 34.17%. The iris images are classified with two algorithms, the double threshold algorithm, which classifies iris images with an accuracy of 94.61%, and the backpropagation algorithm, which is 93.23% accurate. When we allow for the border effect, the double threshold algorithm is 98.28% accurate.