Biometric Feature Extraction for Iris Scans

This paper generally seeks to demonstrate understanding and use of iris scans for biometric identification. Salient features of iris are identified, their extracts analyzed critically by use of a software. The software for extraction of the features is developed on MATLAB platform. Already prepared iris scans are used due to lack of scanners and/or very high resolution cameras that would have otherwise assisted to obtain the required distinct features for comparison. The program developed would compare two iris images a time and determine if they came from same individual; what we are referring to as matching. A computer vision algorithm based on The Hough Transform is made use of in determining circles present in the image which are essentially the iris and pupil. The region of interest from which the unique features are obtained would be located between papillary and limbic boundaries. Papillary (between iris and pupil) while limbic boundary is the one demarcating the iris and sclera. The comparison entails first determining codes of the two iris images through generation of separate biometric template for them then using encoding procedure. Hamming distance calculation between the iris codes determines if they match.