Iris recognition is known as one of the most accurate and reliable biometrics. However, the accuracy of iris recognition systems depends on the quality of data capture and is negatively affected by several factors such as angle, occlusion, and dilation. In this paper, we present a segmentation algorithm for off-angle iris images that uses edge detection, edge elimination, edge classification, and ellipse fitting techniques. In our approach, we first detect all candidate edges in the iris image by using the canny edge detector; this collection contains edges from the iris and pupil boundaries as well as eyelash, eyelids, iris texture etc. Edge orientation is used to eliminate the edges that cannot be part of the iris or pupil. Then, we classify the remaining edge points into two sets as pupil edges and iris edges. Finally, we randomly generate subsets of iris and pupil edge points, fit ellipses for each subset, select ellipses with similar parameters, and average to form the resultant ellipses. Based on the results from real experiments, the proposed method shows effectiveness in segmentation for off-angle iris images.

Date Published: 6 March 2013
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 8661, Image Processing: Machine Vision Applications VI, 866108 (6 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2004444

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8661:
Image Processing: Machine Vision Applications VI
Philip R. Bingham; Edmund Y. Lam, Editor(s)