Organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus, authentication apparatus, organism characteristic data acquiring method, organism characteristic data acquiring program and computer-readable recording medium on which the program is recorded

• US 7,599,529 B2
• Filed: 11/12/2003
• Issued: 10/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Fujii, Yusaku
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim; Charles
• Assistant Examiner(s): Koziol; Stephen R
• Application Number:
  US10/705,455
• Publication Number:
  US 20040114784A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,155 Days
• Field of Search: 382/115, 382/116, 382/124, 382/125, 382/168, 382/169, 382/170, 382/112
• US Class Current: 382/124
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/1335 Combining adjacent partial images (e.g. slices) to create a composite input or reference pattern; Tracking a sweeping finger movement

Abstract

The invention provides an apparatus by which organism characteristic data included in an entire image can be acquired without producing the entire image from a plurality of partial images. The apparatus detects, every time a partial image is sampled, a relative positional relationship between the partial image and a different partial image sampled already, and extracts characteristic portion data including characteristic information unique to the organism portion from the partial image. Then, the apparatus synthesizes the extracted characteristic portion data of the partial image and characteristic portion data of the different partial image based on the detected relative positional relationship of the partial image. The apparatus can be applied, for example, to an authentication apparatus which uses a sweep type fingerprint sensor.

Claims

1. An organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus for acquiring organism characteristic data, for at least one of registration organism characteristic data storage and an authentication unit for authenticating the identification object person, from an identification object person or a registration object person to authenticate the identification object person based on the organism characteristic data, comprising:

a sampling section for successively sampling partial images of a portion of an organism from each of the identification object person and/or the registration object person, each sampled partial image having an overlapping portion shared with a previously sampled partial image sampled immediately before the sampled partial image;

a detection section for detecting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to obtaining the sampled partial image by said sampling section, a relative positional relationship between the sampled partial image and the previously sampled partial image based on the overlapping portion;

an extraction section for extracting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to detection of the relative positional relationship by said detection section, characteristic portion data including characteristic information unique to the organism portion from the sampled partial image; and

a synthesis section for synthesizing, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to extraction of the characteristic portion data by said extraction section, the characteristic portion data of the sampled partial image extracted by said extraction section and characteristic portion data of the previously sampled partial image based on the relative positional relationship of the sampled partial image detected by said detection section and outputting a result of the synthesis as organism characteristic data of the portion of the organism for the at least one of registration organism characteristic data storage and an authentication unit for authenticating the identification object person using sampled partial images forming less than an entire image of the portion of the organism sampled in said sampling.

2. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said sampling section samples a pattern formed from a ridge on the portion of the organism.

3. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein said extraction section extracts, as the characteristic portion data, information regarding a characteristic point of the ridge.

4. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein said extraction section extracts, as the information regarding a characteristic point of the ridge, at least one of a position, a type and a direction of the characteristic point.

5. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein said extraction section extracts, as the characteristic portion data, a position of a sweat gland which exists on the ridge.

6. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein said extraction section extracts, as the characteristic portion data, a number of sweat glands which exist between the characteristic points on the ridge.

7. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein said extraction section extracts, as the characteristic portion data, a position of a ridge end which is at an end of the sampled partial image.

8. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein said extraction section extracts, as the characteristic portion data, information of a connectional relationship between the characteristic point and the ridge end.

9. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein said extraction section extracts, as the ridge structure data, a skeleton line image obtained by thinning the image of the ridge.

10. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein said extraction section extracts, as the ridge structure data, a binary image obtained by binarizing the image of the ridge.

11. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein said detection section detects, as the relative positional relationship, a positional relationship of superposition between the sampled partial image and the previously sampled partial image such that ridges same as each other in the sampled partial image and the previously sampled partial image are smoothly connected to each other.

12. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein said detection section detects, as the relative positional relationship, a corresponding relationship of the ridges same as each other in the sampled partial image and the previously sampled partial image.

13. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 1,

wherein said sampling section obtains the sampled partial image by replacing the organism portion on a sampling face by a plural number of times for sampling a partial image, and

wherein characteristic portion data regarding one of the partial images, having an area which has a side shared by or overlapping at least one other of the partial images sampled by said sampling section, is used as an object of the synthesizing process by said synthesis section.

14. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 2,

wherein said sampling section obtains the sampled partial image by replacing the organism portion on a sampling face by a plural number of times for sampling a partial image, and

wherein characteristic portion data regarding one of the partial images, having an area which has a side shared by or overlapping at least one other of the partial images sampled by said sampling section is used as an object of the synthesizing process by said synthesis section.

15. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 1,

wherein said sampling section obtains the sampled partial image while the organism portion is relatively moved with respect to a sampling face for sampling a partial image, and

wherein characteristic portion data regarding one of the partial images, having an area which has a side shared by or overlapping at least one other of the partial images sampled by said sampling section is used as an object of the synthesizing process by said synthesis section.

16. The organism characteristic data acquiring apparatus as claimed in claim 2,

wherein said sampling section obtains the sampled partial image while the organism portion is relatively moved with respect to a sampling face for sampling a partial image, and

wherein characteristic portion data regarding one of the partial images, having an area which has a side shared by or overlapping at least one other of the partial images sampled by said sampling section is used as an object of the synthesizing process by said synthesis section.

17. An authentication apparatus for authenticating an object person of authentication based on the organism characteristic data, comprising:

a sampling section for successively sampling partial images of a portion of an organism of the object person of authentication, each sampled partial image having an overlapping portion shared with a previously sampled partial image sampled immediately before the sampled partial image;

a detection section for detecting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to obtaining the sampled partial image by said sampling section, a relative positional relationship between the sampled partial image and the previously sampled partial image based on the overlapping portion;

an extraction section for extracting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to detection of the relative positional relationship by said detection section, characteristic portion data including characteristic information unique to the organism portion from the sampled partial image;

a synthesis section for synthesizing, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to extraction of the characteristic portion data by said extraction section, the characteristic portion data of the sampled partial image extracted by said extraction section and characteristic portion data of the previously sampled partial image based on the relative positional relationship of the sampled partial image detected by said detection section and outputting a result of the synthesis as organism characteristic data of the portion of the organism; and

a collation section for executing a collation process using the organism characteristic data from said synthesis section in order to perform personal identification of the object person of authentication using sampled partial images forming less than an entire image of the portion of the organism sampled by said sampling section, and outputting a result of the collation process as an authentication result.

18. An authentication apparatus for authenticating an object person of authentication based on the organism characteristic data, comprising:

a sampling section for successively sampling partial images of a pattern formed from a ridge on a portion of an organism of the object person of authentication, each sampled partial image having an overlapping portion shared with a previously sampled partial image sampled immediately before the sampled partial image;

a detection section for detecting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to obtaining the sampled partial image by said sampling section, a relative positional relationship between the sampled partial image and the previously sampled partial image based on the overlapping portion;

a ridge structure data extraction section for extracting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to detection of the relative positional relationship by said detection section, ridge structure data including characteristic information unique to the organism portion from the sampled partial image;

a synthesis section for synthesizing, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to extraction of the ridge structure data by said ridge structure data extraction section, the ridge structure data of the sampled partial image extracted by said ridge structure data extraction section and ridge structure data of the previously sampled partial image based on the relative positional relationship of the sampled partial image detected by said detection section and outputting a result of the synthesis;

a characteristic data extraction section for extracting characteristic data unique to the organism portion from the result of the synthesis outputted from said synthesis section; and

a collation section for executing a collation process using the characteristic data extracted by said characteristic data extraction section in order to perform personal identification of the object person of authentication using sampled partial images forming less than an entire image of the portion of the organism sampled by said sampling section, and outputting a result of the collation process as an authentication result.

19. An organism characteristic data acquiring method performed by a processor, for acquiring organism characteristic data from an identification object person or a registration object person to authenticate the identification object person based on the organism characteristic data, the method comprising:

sampling successive partial images of a portion of an organism of each of the identification object person and/or the registration object person, each sampled partial image having an overlapping portion shared with a previously sampled partial image sampled immediately before the sampled partial image;

detecting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to obtaining the sampled partial image by said sampling, a relative positional relationship between the sampled partial image and the previously sampled partial image based on the overlapping portion;

extracting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to detection of the relative positional relationship by said detecting, characteristic portion data including characteristic information unique to the organism portion from the sampled partial image; and

synthesizing, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to extraction of the characteristic portion data by said extracting, the characteristic portion data of the sampled partial image extracted by said extracting and characteristic portion data of the previously sampled partial image based on the relative positional relationship of the sampled partial image detected by said detecting and outputting a result of the synthesis as organism characteristic data of the portion of the organism for authentication using sampled partial images forming less than an entire image of the portion of the organism sampled in said sampling.

20. The organism characteristic data acquiring method performed by a processor according to claim 19, wherein a pattern formed from a ridge on the portion of the organism is sampled by said sampling.

21. A computer-readable recording medium on which an organism characteristic data acquiring program for acquiring organism characteristic data, for at least one of registration organism characteristic data storage and an authentication unit for authenticating the identification object person, from an identification object person a or a registration object person to authenticate the identification object person based on the organism characteristic data is recorded, said program causing a computer to function as:

a detection section for detecting successive partial images, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to obtaining a respective previously sampled partial image, sampled by a sampling section for sampling a partial image of a portion of an organism from each of the identification object person and/or the registration object person, each sampled partial image having an overlapping portion shared with the respective previously sampled partial image sampled immediately before the sampled partial image, a relative positional relationship between the sampled partial image and the previously sampled partial image based on the overlapping portion;

an extraction section for extracting, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to detection of the relative positional relationship by said detection section, characteristic portion data including characteristic information unique to the organism portion from the sampled partial image; and

a synthesis section for synthesizing, substantially contemporaneously and subsequent to extraction of the characteristic portion data by said extraction section, the characteristic portion data of the sampled partial image extracted by said extraction section and characteristic portion data of the previously sampled partial image based on the relative positional relationship of the sampled partial image detected by said detection section and outputting a result of the synthesis as organism characteristic data of the portion of the organism for the at least one of registration organism characteristic data storage and an authentication unit for authenticating the identification object person using sampled partial images forming less than an entire image of the portion of the organism sampled by said detection section.

22. The computer-readable recording medium according to claim 21, wherein when said program causes the computer to function as the sampling section, said program causes the computer to sample a pattern formed from a ridge on the portion of the organism.