Fingerprint SDK

A fingerprint SDK is a software toolkit that allows the integration of biometric fingerprint recognition into various applications. They will typically utilize either DLL or ActiveX (COM) to interface with the integrated application. By referencing these DLL or COM objects, developers are able to utilize the fingerprint functionality from within a desired application.

Fingerprint SDKs provide a basic framework of functions to talk to a fingerprint scanner, capture an image, extract the unique minutiae data from the image, and compare two sets of extracted minutiae data. All of the more complex features and functionality are built upon this framework.

Functions

initialize() -- Initializes the fingerprint SDK API (when starting)
cleanup() -- Release resources initialized by API (when finished)
openDevice() -- Open a fingerprint scanner device
closeDevice() -- Close fingerprint scanner device
captureImage() -- Captures a fingerprint image from device
getMinutiae() -- Extracts minutiae points from captured fingerprint
matchMinutiae() -- Compares two minutiae records (1-to-1)

NIST Evaluation

NIST evaluates biometric systems according to the following operational model:

1. A template is created for each target element t in set T. The successful creation of a template is considered a successful enrollment, otherwise the is considered an enrollment failure.
2. Each image q in set Q is compared to each successfully generated template (i.e., all query elements are pair wise compared against all target elements). For each comparison, the score representing the similarity between the images is recorded. The score is assumed to be a floating-point number that represents the similarity between the images. Higher scores indicate similar biometric signatures, lower scores dissimilar ones. A pretermined null similarity score (typically zero) would be used given a system error, such as failure to enroll the target or query signature.

See also: NIST Fingerprint SDK Evaluation

Common Developer Issues Not Addressed with a Fingerprint SDK

• Good fingerprint scan VS a bad fingerprint scan
• How to store the extracted minutiae
• How to load the information back from the stored location
• How to encrypt/decrypt the stored data
• How to create a transmit comparison requests across a network to facilitate a client/server topology
• How to associate more than one fingerprint with a given person
• How to convert a 1-to-1 comparison functionality and build it into a 1-to-N solution
• Reliability of the comparisons against a large population size

Fingerprint SDK vendors

Cogent Systems
Biometrix
Bromba Biometrics
Dermalog Identification Systems
Futronic Technolog Co. Ltd.
Identix
ID Solutions
Innovatrics
M2SYS Technology
Motorola
NEC
Neurotechnologija
SAGEM Morpho
Secugen
SONATEQ
Thales Security Systems
USFIS International

Resources

NIST Fingerprint SDK Evaluation