IEEE Transactions on Control System, Computing and Engineering (CSCE), February 2018

Computer Assisted Segmentation of Palmprint

Images for Biometric Research

Roszaharah Yaacob, Helmi Mohd Hadi Pritam, Chok Dong Ooi, Haidi Ibrahim
Nik Fakhuruddin Nik Hassan School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering,
School of Health Sciences, Health Campus, Universiti Sains Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300
Malaysia, 16150 Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Malaysia Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
E-mail: chok_dong@hotmail.com, haidi_ibrahim@ieee.org

Puwira Jaya Othman

Fingerprint Department,
Royal Malaysia Police Headquarter,
Bukit Aman, 50560 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract—One of the becoming popular biometric modalities Most of the features from the palmprint do not change in an
is the palmprint. This biometric modality is rich with individual lifespan, make them stable for the purpose of
information, such as minutiae, ridges, wrinkles, and creases. biometric identification. Features from the palmprint include
This research team is interested to investigate the creases for crease features, point features and texture features [1,7]. In this
biometric identification. The palmprint images in this research paper, the research is more interested in the crease features.
have been captured by using a commercially available consumer Creases are defined as the discontinuities in the epidermal ridge
scanner. For each palmprint image, two square regions on the patterns, which started to develop since gestation age [8].
palmprint image are extracted for biometric identification Crease are formed during the embryonic skin development
purpose. One of the regions is from the hyperthenar region,
stage [9] and creases are permanent and unique [10]. Palmprint
while the another is from the interdigital region. Due to
has several main regions, as shown in Fig. 1. The main regions
misalignment of the hand, the process of extraction of these
regions is tedious and time-consuming. Therefore, in this paper, are the hypothenar, thenar, and interdigital regions.
a computer-aided method has been proposed to simplify the
extraction process. The user only needs to mark two points on
the palmprint image. Based on these points, the palmprint image
will be aligned, and those two regions are extracted
automatically.

Keywords—biometric identification, digital image processing,

feature extraction, region of interest, segmentation

I. INTRODUCTION
Biometric identifications are becoming popular in recent
years. An identification system using biometric modalities
utilizes features from an individual for the recognition process.
These features include physical and behavioral characteristic of
a person [1,2]. Examples of biometric modalities are the face,
fingerprint, palmprint, voice, and gait. This research team
investigates the features from palmprint images for biometric Fig. 1. Regions of the palmprint
identification. The palmprint can be utilized for personal
recognition [3,4]. The palmprint implies a picture of a hand or A survey by Kong et al. [11] emphasized the researches on
the impression of the hand’s residue on the surface. The region palmprint recognition using the principal lines. According to
of the palmprint is from the wrist to the root of the fingers [5]. them, the region of the interest (ROI), which is the palm
A lot of features can be extracted from the palmprint for the region, is extracted by many researchers through a five steps
purpose of biometric identification [4,6]. process. First, the image is thresholded, and the image is
transformed into binary image. Second, the contour of the
hand and/or finger is extracted. This may be obtained by