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Gender Classification From Fingerprint Ridge Count and Fingertip Size Using Optimal Score Assignment
Gender Classification From Fingerprint Ridge Count and Fingertip Size Using Optimal Score Assignment
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40747-019-0099-y
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Abstract
Information on the gender of a person plays a vital role in crime investigation, authentication and statistical report on the
visitors. In this work, fingerprint ridge count and fingertip size are used as the parameters for automatic gender classifica-
tion. As a novel method, the optimal score assignment (OSA) method is proposed to classify gender. An optimal score is
calculated for male and female from the internally collected fingerprint database. Fingerprints are collected under four age
groups and all the fingers are scanned. For the fingerprint image ‘I’ for which gender is to be identified, scores are assigned
for ridge count and fingertip assuming that the given image is male. A similar calculation is made assuming that the given
image is female. Comparing both values, gender is declared. The maximum success rate attained is 88.41% for the age group
18–25 years and a good success rate of 90.11% is achieved for the right hand ring finger. Performance evaluation is made
with the earlier findings of the author and other methods.
Keywords Gender classification · Optimal score assignment · Ridge count · Fingertip size
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than the female score (FS), the decision is declared as male, the interactive software system [5] that relives the tedium
otherwise it is declared as female. The proposed method of of visual inspection and standardizes the fingerprint ridge
gender classification is demonstrated in Fig. 1. counting procedure is also published. In terms of age, the
This method of gender identification will be helpful in quality scores of 18–25 age group are good [6] compared
short listing the suspects and victims from crime scenes and to < 18 and > 25 age groups.
improves the performance of a system which is used for Ridge distance measurement is vital for robust perfor-
person recognition and human computer interfaces. mance of an automated fingerprint identification system
This manuscript is organized as follows: the second (AFIS) irrespective of quality of the images [7]. Also,
section briefs the literature of various gender recognition the traditional spectral analysis method was realized and
algorithms using a fingerprint. The third section details the a novel statistical method was presented for ridge dis-
OSA method. In this section, singular points detection, ridge tance estimation [8]. Ridge density in a particular space
count and fingertip size measurements are elaborated. Score was used to classify gender using fingerprint and further
assignment procedure is explained and optimal score is demonstrated that the females have a higher ridge density
assigned to each ridge count and fingertip size. The experi- compared with males. Geometric and spectral methods
mental results and performance analysis are demonstrated were used to estimate fingerprint ridge distance [9]. These
in the section “Experimental results”. The section “Con- methods calculate ridge direction directly. Mathematical
clusion” concludes the proposed work and briefs the future characterization of the local frequency of sinusoidal sig-
work. nals and two-dimensional model was proposed [10] to
approximate the ridgeline patterns for ridgeline density
estimation in digital images.
Related works Frequency domain analysis of fingerprint [11] for the
identification of gender produces a good classification rate.
Although the fingerprint plays an essential role in the identi- Gender classification using fingerprints through univariate
fication and verification, only a few machine vision methods decision tree [12] was proposed and a classification rate of
have been proposed for gender identification. In this sec- 96.28% was achieved. The back-propagation neural network
tion, we have summarized the prior researches in gender classifier was used to classify the gender [13] and the clas-
classification. sification rate achieved was 92.67%.
It is demonstrated that the males have a higher ridge This paper demonstrates the identification of gender
breadth than females [1]. Using Bayes’ theorem [3] on the using the spatial parameters of the fingerprint. In this work,
rolled fingerprint images belonging to the South Indian fingerprint ridge count and fingertip size are used as the
population, it is found that the fingerprint possessing ridge parameters for automatic gender classification. As a novel
density < 13 ridges/25 mm2 is most likely to be of male method, the OSA method is proposed to classify gender.
and ridge count > 14 ridges/25 mm2 are most likely to be Information on the gender of a person plays a vital role in
of female. Using the ridge thickness to valley thickness crime investigation, authentication and statistical report on
ratio (RTVTR) and white lines count features [4], gender the visitors. This method of gender identification will be
was classified. According to them, the female’s fingerprint helpful in short listing the suspects and victims from crime
is characterized by a high RTVTR, while the male’s fin- scenes and improves the performance of a system which is
gerprint is characterized by low RTVTR. A proposal for used for person recognition and human computer interfaces.
Fig. 1 Gender classification
from ridge count and fingertip
size
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Ridge count
Principal Other
Diagonal Diagonal
The ridge count is calculated by counting the number of
Core ridges intervening between the delta and core [19]. In the
proposed method, instead of considering counting only
Delta between the core and delta, an effort is taken to count the
ridges of the entire fingertip.
32 32 29 32 33 28 32
31
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Singular points identification 28 28 28 28
24
1 13 12 49 40 30 30
2 13 14 47 48 36 32
3 14 14 47 49 36 34
4 11 12 43 44 29 28
5 14 14 52 52 34 33
6 13 12 48 50 33 31
7 13 11 46 39 30 29
8 15 12 46 45 32 34
9 13 14 50 47 33 33
10 14 12 43 44 30 28
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Table 2 RC score assigned for RC Number of occurrence Occurrence percentage Score assigned
female and male fingers
Male Female Male Female Male Female
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Ridge counts of all the internal database fingerprints are cal- FTS is computed using the scanner information. The
culated using MATLAB. Measured fingerprint RCs are listed scanned image is of the size 300 × 260. In all the 8130
in an ascending order and the number of each RC is counted. fingerprints of 403 males and 410 females, FTS are figured
The percentage of occurrence of a particular RC among total and analyzed. Comparison of FTS values is made between
fingerprints is determined by Eq. (2) and presented in Table 2. genders and all four age groups. The fingertip size is com-
puted in square millimeter. The fingertip size of male and
Occurence percentage of RC =
No. of occurence of an RC
× 100. female fingerprints irrespective of the age group is analyzed
Total number of samples and represented in Table 3.
(2)
The FTS values of male and female are compared in the
From Table 2, it is clarified that the ridge count of 31 was line chart in Fig. 5.
found to be 287 times among the 4100 female fingerprints.
This is the highest occurrence in comparison with other
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Table 4 FTS score assigned for FTS Number of occurrence Occurrence percentage Score assigned
female and male fingers
Male Female Male Female Male Female
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Optimal FTS score calculation are more for male than female. Also, all these values dif-
fer for male and female in all the age groups. The novel
The fingertip size of all the internal database fingerprints is method of OSA is discussed and the scores are assigned in
calculated using MATLAB. The measured fingerprint FTSs this section. As the scores assigned for a particular value
are listed in ascending order and the number of each FTS of RC/FTS are different for male and female, the sum of
is counted. The percentage occurrence of a particular FTS these scores computed for each gender is distinguishable
among total fingerprints is determined by Eq. (4) and tabu- and thus declares more accurate results.
lated in Table 4. Let I be the fingerprint image for which the gender needs
to be identified. Considering I as the male fingerprint, the
Occurence percentage of FTS
total score IMS is calculated by Eq. (6).
No. of occurence of an FTS (4)
= × 100.
Total number of samples IMS = RCM + FTSM , (6)
where RCM and F TSM are the respective scores of ridge
From Table 4, it is clarified that the fingertip size of count and fingertip size assigned for male fingerprints. Simi-
450 mm2 was found 175 times among the 4100 female fin- larly, considering I as a female fingerprint, the total score of
gerprints. This is the highest occurrence in comparison with IFS is calculated by Eq. (7).
other FTS counts. Its occurrence percentage is calculated as
4.2683 and referred to as the maximum occurrence percentage. IFS = RCF + FTSF (7)
A maximum score of 10 is assigned for this FTS. Scores for where RCF and FTSF are the respective scores of ridge count
the remaining FTS are determined by Eq. (5). and fingertip size assigned for female fingerprints. The
gender of the unknown fingerprint I is declared as male if
Occurrence % of a particular FTS
FTS score = × 100. IMS > IFS, and otherwise declared as female. Two examples
Maximum occurence % are shown in the Table 5.
(5)
For example, as in Table 4, FTS = 400 has its occurrence
percentage as 2.8780. Now, the score is calculated as follows.
Age group‑wise gender classification
2.8780
FTS (= 400) Score = × 10 = 6.742.
4.2683 Age group-wise gender classifications are presented in
Table 5. The number of samples used is 44, 55, 198 and
Thus, FTS scores are computed individually for male (4030
106 for each finger in the age groups 8–12, 13–18, 19–25
samples) and female (4100 samples) of all the internal data-
and > 25, respectively. Thus, collectively 4030 samples
bases and shown in Table 4.
were used for testing the proposed method. For the age
From Table 4, it is concluded that the FTS of 450 mm2 and
group 19–25 years, the results are good and the success
530 mm2 are occurring more for female and male, respectively.
rate achieved is 88.41%. The success rate for the right hand
ring fingers in this group achieved is 90.11%.
Experimental results Performance evaluation
A detailed analysis of RC and FTS was carried out in the
In this section, a novel approach of the gender classification
previous section. From the analysis, it is observed that
using the OSA method is compared with various methods
the ridge count and the fingertip size of the fingerprints
experimented by the author [12, 20, 21]. The best results were
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Table 6 Performance Features used FFT, DCT & PSD DWT level 6 SVD DWT level 6 RC &FTS
comparison (in %) of the & SVD
proposed method
Classifiers Threshold KNN KNN KNN OSA method
Male 85.15 88.89 90.34 89.24 90.52
Female 83.80 84.35 85.32 87.15 86.30
Overall 84.51 86.62 87.83 88.20 88.41
Table 7 Performance Badawi et al. [4] Verma and Agarwal [22] Proposed method
comparison with the existing
methods Features used RTVTR, white line count, ridge count RTVTR, ridge width and Ridge count, and
asymmetry pattern type ridge density fingertip size
Classifiers FCM LDA NN SVM OSA method
89 88.2 88.41 5. Abdullah SF, Abas ZA, Rahman AFNA, Saad WHM (2016)
87.83 Development of a fingerprint algorithm using fingerprint global
88
86.62 features. Int J Adv Comput Sci Appl 7(6):275–279
Success Rate (%)
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of Justice. http://www.dermatoglyphics.com/sof/. Accessed Nov 22. Verma M, Agarwal S (2009) Fingerprint based male-female clas-
2018 sification. CISIS 2008. ASC 53:251–257
20. Gnanasivam P, Muttan S (2012) Fingerprint gender classification
using wavelet transform and singular value decomposition. Int J Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
Comput Sci Issues 9(3):274–282 jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
2 1. Gnanasivam P, Muttan S (2012) Singular value decomposition
based fingerprint gender classification. CiiT Int J Biomet Bioin-
form 4(1):23–27
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