Fingerprints thinning algorithm

During the last years, the authors are designing a high resolution fingerprint identification system based on minutiae extraction. In this sense, a fingerprint thinning algorithm by means of morphological image processing operations is presented, to improve the minutiae map involved. The first step, as in every biometric system, is to obtain an image of the user's fingerprint. After this, a pre-processing algorithm is applied which enables feature extraction steps to obtain the location and type of all minutiae; i.e., the discontinuities in the ridges and valleys of the fingerprint.