5 Full Palm (“EightInch” Data)

5.1 Segmentation Timing

All algorithms are run over a small fixed corpus of EightInch images to estimate the total runtime of the evaluation. To be evaluated under SlapSeg III, algorithms must segment the timing corpus, on average, in under 1 500 milliseconds. This maximum reference time is documented in the SlapSeg III test plan, and is subject to change.

Box plots of segmentation times are separated by slap orientation in

Figure 5.1. Tabular representations are enumerated in Table 5.1. Results are reported in milliseconds.

Box plots of elapsed time in milliseconds when segmenting the EightInch timing test corpus, separated by slap orientation.

Figure 5.1: Box plots of elapsed time in milliseconds when segmenting the EightInch timing test corpus, separated by slap orientation.

Table 5.1: Elapsed time in milliseconds when segmenting the EightInch timing test corpus, separated by slap orientation and capture technology.
Right Left Combined
Minimum 491 502 491
25% 535 527 532
Median 567 559 563
75% 620 618 618
Maximum 1 594 1 085 1 594

5.2 Segmentation Centers and Dimensions

5.2.1 Segmentation Centers

The plots in this section show the distribution of segmentation position centers (x, y) for EightInch data. At the top of each figure is a combined plot for all finger positions of a given slap orientation. These figures are isolated in plots faceted at the bottom of the figure.

Plots of segmentation centers for the right hand EightInch data are shown in Figure 5.2 and plots of segmentation centers for the left hand are shown in Figure 5.3. Blank lines that may appear in the plots are not rendering artifacts. Rather, they are indicative of image downsampling. Centers have been normalized to 500 pixels per inch.

Points in each plot are plotted with a semi-transparent opacity. This results in points of particular color appearing “darker” to indicate a higher frequency of the observed value, while “lighter” points indicate a lower observed frequency.

Segmentation centers for right hand EightInch data.

Figure 5.2: Segmentation centers for right hand EightInch data.

Segmentation centers for left hand EightInch data.

Figure 5.3: Segmentation centers for left hand EightInch data.

5.2.2 Segmentation Dimensions

The plots in this section show the distribution of segmentation position widths and heights for EightInch data. At the top of each figure is a combined plot for all finger positions of a given slap orientation. These figures are isolated in plots faceted at the bottom of the figure.

Plots of segmentation position dimensions for the right hand EightInch data are shown in Figure 5.4 and the left hand in Figure 5.5. Blank lines that may appear in the plots are not rendering artifacts. Rather, they are indicative of image downsampling. Dimensions have been normalized to 500 pixels per inch.

Segmentation position dimensions for right hand EightInch data.

Figure 5.4: Segmentation position dimensions for right hand EightInch data.

Segmentation position dimensions for left hand EightInch data.

Figure 5.5: Segmentation position dimensions for left hand EightInch data.

5.3 Detailed Segmentation Statistics

NOTE: The following segmentation statistics are based on a limited subset (approximately 15%) of the anticipated Full Palm dataset. This analysis will be updated as soon as NIST can obtain the remainder of the dataset.

This section shows detailed results of segmentation of EightInch data. Values in each table are the percentage that the variable in the left-most column was correctly segmented.

Each table has three columns of percentages. The Standard Scoring column shows the percentage of correctly-segmented positions based on the scoring metrics defined in the SlapSeg III scoring document. The Ignoring Bottom Y column shows how the percentage would change if the threshold for the bottom Y coordinate of the segmentation position was ignored. Similarly, the Ignoring Bottom X and Y columns shows how the percentage would change if only the top, left, and right sides of the segmentation position were considered. These two supplemental columns are included because it has traditionally been difficult to determine the exact location of the distal interphalangeal joint.

Table 5.2 shows how successful thalescogent+0003 segmented fingers for each subject in the test corpus. Table 5.3 shows success for specific finger positions over the entire test corpus. Similarly, Table 5.4 shows success for segmenting the same finger position from both hands.

The remainder of the tables show success per subject when considering combinations of subsets of the fingers on each slap image. Table 5.5 shows success for combinations of all fingers, Table 5.6 for just the index and middle fingers, and Table 5.7 for all except the little finger.

Table 5.2: For each subject, the percentage that at least Number of Fingers fingers were correctly segmented, regardless of hand, for a maximum of eight correctly-segmented fingers. In Standard Scoring, scoring rules are followed exactly. In Ignoring Bottom Y, the bottom left and bottom right Y coordinates are ignored. Ignoring Bottom X and Y only checks the locations of the top left and top right coordinates.
Number of Fingers Standard Scoring Ignoring Bottom Y Ignoring Bottom X and Y
1 99.8 100.0 100.0
2 99.0 99.2 99.5
3 97.9 98.3 98.6
4 96.1 96.9 97.4
5 92.3 95.1 95.4
6 84.1 89.4 90.5
7 71.8 78.3 81.3
8 46.6 57.1 60.9
Table 5.3: For all subjects, percentage that a particular friction ridge generalized position was correctly segmented. In Ignoring Bottom Y, the bottom left and bottom right Y coordinates are ignored. Ignoring Bottom X and Y only checks the locations of the top left and top right coordinates.
Finger Standard Scoring Ignoring Bottom Y Ignoring Bottom X and Y
Right
Index 81.3 88.4 89.7
Middle 82.5 85.3 86.7
Ring 89.0 91.6 93.0
Little 92.6 93.6 94.3
Left
Index 79.2 86.2 88.3
Middle 80.6 83.3 84.4
Ring 87.2 90.0 90.9
Little 95.2 95.9 96.4
Table 5.4: Percentage that a particular type of fingerprint was correctly segmented on Either or Both hands. In Ignoring Bottom Y, the bottom left and bottom right Y coordinates are ignored. Ignoring Bottom X and Y only checks the locations of the top left and top right coordinates.
Fingers Standard Scoring Ignoring Bottom Y Ignoring Bottom X and Y
Index
Either 93.3 97.4 97.6
Both 67.1 77.2 80.3
Middle
Either 93.4 94.8 95.5
Both 69.7 73.8 75.5
Ring
Either 96.3 97.5 97.9
Both 79.9 84.1 86.0
Little
Either 98.4 98.5 99.2
Both 89.4 90.9 91.5
Table 5.5: Percentage of segmentation success by hand for combinations of all eight fingers of a EightInch slap. In Ignoring Bottom Y, the bottom left and bottom right Y coordinates are ignored. Ignoring Bottom X and Y only checks the locations of the top left and top right coordinates.
Fingers Standard Scoring Ignoring Bottom Y Ignoring Bottom X and Y
Right
Any 98.3 98.9 99.0
At Least Two 94.7 96.1 96.4
At Least Three 86.7 90.0 91.1
All Four 65.7 73.9 77.0
Left
Any 99.0 99.2 99.3
At Least Two 94.5 95.7 96.6
At Least Three 85.5 88.7 89.9
All Four 63.2 71.7 74.3
Table 5.6: Percentage of segmentation success by hand when only considering combinations of index and middle fingers. In Ignoring Bottom Y, the bottom left and bottom right Y coordinates are ignored. Ignoring Bottom X and Y only checks the locations of the top left and top right coordinates.
Fingers Standard Scoring Ignoring Bottom Y Ignoring Bottom X and Y
Right
Either Index or Middle 92.0 94.0 94.6
Both Index and Middle 71.8 79.7 81.7
Left
Either Index or Middle 91.4 93.6 94.1
Both Index and Middle 68.4 76.0 78.5
Table 5.7: Percentage of segmentation success by hand when only considering combinations of index, middle, and ring fingers. In Ignoring Bottom Y, the bottom left and bottom right Y coordinates are ignored. Ignoring Bottom X and Y only checks the locations of the top left and top right coordinates.
Fingers Standard Scoring Ignoring Bottom Y Ignoring Bottom X and Y
Right
Any 96.0 97.2 97.5
At Least Two 88.4 91.6 92.8
All Three 68.4 76.4 79.1
Left
Any 96.1 97.0 97.4
At Least Two 86.6 89.5 90.6
All Three 64.4 73.0 75.6

5.4 Handling Troublesome Images

5.4.1 Capture Failures

Segmentation algorithms may refuse to process an image. This may happen for a technical reason (e.g., the algorithm cannot parse the image data), or for a practical reason (e.g., the hand in the image is placed incorrectly). These failure scenarios are the result of capturing improper image data. In these types of scenarios, it is important to examine the cause of the failure. With many live scan capture setups, segmentation is performed immediately after capture. If an algorithm can detect that it won’t be able to segment an image due to a technical or practical issue, it can alert the operator to perform a recapture before the subject leaves.

The SlapSeg III API encourages algorithms to identify these failure reasons by specifying pre-defined deficiencies in the image. Algorithms should attempt segmentation even if an image deficiency is encountered if at all possible. Note that SlapSeg III guarantees well-formed image data, so failures to parse are not an indicator of the data provided.

thalescogent+0003 did not report any capture failures.

5.4.1.1 Recovery

When encountering a segmentation failure, SlapSeg III algorithms are encouraged to provide a best-effort segmentation when possible. In some cases, that best-effort may be correct, which reduces the amount of images that need to be manually adjudicated by an operator.

thalescogent+0003 did not attempt any recovery segmentations.

5.4.2 Segmentation Failures

Even if an algorithm accepts an image for processing, it can still fail to process one or more fingers from the image, regardless of if the algorithm requested a recapture and provided best-effort segmentation.

The SlapSeg III API allows algorithms to communicate reasons for failure to process these fingers. In some cases, the distal phalanx in question might not be present in the image due to amputation or being placed outside the platen’s capture area. It is imperative that the segmentation algorithm correctly report this as failing to segment the correct friction ridge generalized position without disrupting the sequence of valid positions present in the image. This can help prompt an operator to recapture or record additional information about the subject.

In SlapSeg III, a number of images are missing fingers or otherwise have fingers that will not be able to be segmented. Reasons for segmentation failures reported by thalescogent+0003 are enumerated in Table 5.8.

Table 5.8: Count of self-reported segmentation failure reasoning.
Failure Reason Fingers
Finger Not Found 323
Finger Found, but Can’t Segment 0
Vendor Defined 0

5.4.3 Identifying Missing Fingers

A small portion of the test corpus in SlapSeg III are missing fingers. Table 5.9 shows how successful thalescogent+0003 was in correctly determining if a finger was missing. The Missed row shows when a segmentation position was returned for a missing finger. All possible failure reasons are enumerated, but are not considered Correctly Identified because the algorithm specified failure for a reason other than the finger not being found.

Table 5.9: Performance of thalescogent+0003 at detecting fingers missing from an image.
Result Percentage
Missed 0.0
Correctly Identified 100.0
Other Failure: Finger Found, but Can’t Segment 0.0
Other Failure: Vendor Defined 0.0
Other Failure: Segmentation Not Attempted 0.0

5.4.4 Sequence Error

Sequence error occurs when a fingerprint is segmented from an image but assigned an incorrect finger position (e.g., segmenting a right middle finger but labeling it a right index finger). Table 5.10 shows cases in which a segmentation position was returned that matched a ground truth segmentation position for a different finger in the same image.

Table 5.10: Percentage of images in the dataset where one or more segmentation positions correctly matched an incorrect finger position within the same image, indicating sequence error.
Hand Standard Scoring Ignoring Bottom Y Ignoring Bottom X and Y
Left 1.84 1.84 2.30
Right 1.03 1.03 1.03
Combined 1.44 1.44 1.67

5.5 Determining Orientation

An optional portion of the SlapSeg III API asked participants to determine the hand orientation of an image. Participants were provided the kind (e.g., full palm) and needed to determine whether the image was of the left or right hand.

Overall Full Palm accuracy: 95.7%
Table 5.11: Percentage of accuracy when determining hand orientation of an full palm image. The first column indicates the true hand orientation. Subsequent columns indicate the percentage of the time in which the indicated hand orientation was hypothesized.
Left Right
Left 95.5 4.5
Right 4.2 95.8