Rotation-invariant operators applied to enhancement of fingerprints

Rotation-invariant operators of order 0 and 2 are used first to detect and then to enhance lines. The enhancement procedure, suitable for fingerprints, is based on suppression of line responses with an orientation that creates a mismatch with the locally dominating direction of the fingerprint. The rotation-invariant operators also serve as basis functions. By construction they are mutually orthogonal and by proper normalization they form an orthonormal set. At the origin any pattern a(r, phi ) can be expanded or at least approximated by such a set of basis functions.>