VeriFinger SDK - Extended Edition

Fingerprint identification for PC and Web solutions

Click Here to download the full VeriFinger SDK brochure as a .pdf document

VeriFinger is a fingerprint identification technology intended for biometric systems developers and integrators. The technology assures system performance with fast, reliable fingerprint matching in 1-to-1 and 1-to-many modes.

VeriFinger is available as a software development kit that allows development of PC- and Web-based solutions on Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms.

Advantages of VeriFinger

• 1000+ end-user product brands in 98 countries have been using the VeriFinger algorithm the past 12 years.
• Full NIST MINEX certification and Fingerprint Verification Competition (FVC) awards since 2000.
• Fast rolled and flat fingerprint matching that is tolerant to fingerprint translation, rotation and deformation.
• Compact fingerprint template and unlimited database size.
• Available as multiplatform SDK that supports multiple scanners and multiple programming languages.
• Reasonable prices, flexible licensing and free customer support.

VeriFinger Technology and SDK

• VeriFinger Standard and Extended SDK. The Standard SDK is intended for PC-based biometric application development and the Extended SDK is suitable for developing Web-based biometric systems … Read more
• Supported fingerprint scanners. More than 70 scanner models are supported by VeriFinger SDK under Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms.
• System requirements. Components of VeriFinger SDK can be run on computers with x86 or PowerPC processors (at least 2 GHz processor recommended). Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms are supported… Read more
• Technical Specifications. VeriFinger matches 15,000 - 70,000 fingerprints per second (using database pre-sorting), requires from 250 to 6,000 bytes for a fingerprint template in a database … Read more.
• Reliability and Performance Test Results. VeriFinger has been tested with fingerprints taken from different scanners and showed high matching reliability (see ROC charts) … Read more.
• Download. VeriFinger brochure, algorithm demo application and VeriFinger Free 30 day trial are available for downloading.
• Awards. VeriFinger has been awarded for its reliability and performance at FVC2006 and FpVTE 2003 biometric algorithm competitions. Also VeriFinger was certified by NIST as MINEX compliant, and has consistently shown one of the best results at FVC2004, FVC2002 and FVC2000.
• References. VeriFinger is used in more than 1000 end-user product brands. For case studies and Solution Partners products as well as scientific papers based on VeriFinger technology please contact us today.

Contents of VeriFinger 6.3 Standard SDK and Extended SDK

VeriFinger SDK is based on VeriFinger fingerprint recognition technology and is intended for biometric systems developers and integrators. The SDK allows rapid development of biometric applications using functionality from the VeriFinger algorithm for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. VeriFinger can be easily integrated into the customer's security system. The integrator has complete control over SDK data input and output.

The following VeriFinger 6.3 SDKs are available:

• VeriFinger 6.3 Standard SDK is intended for PC-based biometric application development. It includes Fingerprint Matcher and Extractor component licenses, programming samples and tutorials, fingerprint scanner support modules and software documentation. The SDK allows the development of biometric applications for Microsoft Windows, Linux or Mac OS X operating systems.
• VeriFinger 6.3 Extended SDK is intended for biometric Web-based and network application development. It contains all features and components of the Standard SDK. Additionally, the SDK includes Fingerprint Client component licenses, sample client applications, tutorials and a ready-to-use matching server component.

The table below compares VeriFinger 6.3 Standard SDK and VeriFinger 6.3 Extended SDK.

VeriFinger 6.3 SDK includes programming samples and tutorials that show how to use the components of the SDK to perform fingerprint template extraction or matching against other templates. The samples and tutorials are available for these programming languages and platforms:

	Windows 32 & 64 bit	Linux 32 & 64 bit	Mac OS X
Programming samples
• C/C++	+	+	+
• C#	+
• Sun Java 2	+
• Visual Basic .NET	+
• Delphi	+
Programming tutorials
• C	+	+	+
• C#	+
• Visual Basic .NET	+
• Delphi	+

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VeriFinger SDK System Requirements

• PC with x86 (32bit) or x86-64 (64bit) compatible processors or Mac with x86 or PowerPC compatible processors. 2GHz or better processor is recommended.
• At least 128 MB of free RAM should be available for the application. Additional RAM is required for applications that perform 1-to-many identification, as all biometric templates need to be stored in RAM for matching. For example, 25,000 templates (each with 2 fingerprints inside) require about 50 MB of additional RAM.
• Free space on hard disk drive (HDD):
  • at least 1 GB required for the development.
  • 100 MB required for VeriFinger components deployment.
  • Additional space would be required in these cases:
    • VeriFinger does not require the original fingerprint image to be stored for the matching; only the templates need to be stored. However, storing fingerprint images on hard drive for the potential future usage is recommended.
    • Usually a database engine runs on a separate computer (back-end server). However, DB engine can be installed on the same computer for standalone applications. In this case HDD space for templates storage must be available. For example, 25,000 templates (each with 2 fingerprints inside) stored using a relational database would require about 60 MB of free HDD space. Also, the database engine itself requires HDD space for running. Please refer to HDD space requirements from the database engine providers.
• Fingerprint scanner. VeriFinger SDK includes support modules for more than 70 fingerprint scanners under Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms.
• Database engine or connection with it. VeriFinger templates can be saved into any DB (including files) supporting binary data saving. VeriFinger Extended SDK contains the following support modules for Matching Server:
  • Microsoft SQL Server (only for Microsoft Windows platform);
  • PostgreSQL (for Microsoft Windows and Linux platform);
  • MySQL (for Microsoft Windows and Linux platforms);
  • Oracle (for Microsoft Windows and Linux platforms);
  • SQLite (for all platforms).
• Network/LAN connection (TCP/IP) for client/server applications. Also, network connection is required for using Matching server component (included in VeriFinger Extended SDK). Communication with Matching server is not encrypted therefore, if communication must be secured, a dedicated network (not accessible outside the system) or a secured network (such as VPN; VPN must be configured using operating system or third party tools) is recommended.
• Microsoft Windows specific requirements:
  • Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003/2008/Vista/7, 32-bit or 64-bit. 32-bit platform is recommended for applications with fingerprint scanners, as most scanners have only 32-bit support modules.
  • Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 or newer (for .NET components usage).
  • One of following development environments for application development:
    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 SP1 or newer (for application development under C/C++, C#, Visual Basic .Net)
    • Sun Java 1.5 SDK or later
    • Microsoft Visual Basic 6
    • Delphi 7
• Linux specific requirements:
  • Linux 2.6 or newer kernel, 32-bit or 64-bit. 32-bit platform are recommended for applications with fingerprint scanners, as most scanners have only 32-bit support modules.
  • glibc 2.3.6 or newer
  • GTK+ 2.10.x or newer libs and dev packages (to run SDK samples and applications based on them)
  • GCC-4.0.x or newer (for application development)
  • GNU Make 3.81 or newer (for application development)
  • Sun Java 1.5 SDK or later (for application development with Java)
  • pkg-config-0.21 or newer (optional; only for Matching Server database support modules compilation)
• Mac OS X specific requirements:
  • Mac OS X (version 10.4 or newer)
  • XCode 2.4 or newer (for application development)

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Technical Specifications

All specifications are given for Intel Core2 processor with 4 cores running at 2.66 GHz

500 dpi is the recommended fingerprint image resolution for VeriFinger. The minimal fingerprint image resolution is 250 dpi.

All fingerprint templates should be loaded into RAM before identification, thus the maximum fingerprint templates database size is limited by the amount of available RAM.

The table below shows the technical specifications of VeriFinger 6.3 algorithm. The algorithm's performance depends on fingerprint scanner that was used for collecting fingerprint images, thus the specifications are given for two groups of flat fingerprint scanners:

• Biometric scanners in these specifications are scanners that produce fingerprint images of about 300 x 300 pixels. These scanners are usually compact and inexpensive. An example of biometric scanner is DigitalPersona U.are.U 4000.
• AFIS-class scanners in these specifications are flat fingerprint scanners that have at least 1" x 1" fingerprint sensors and produce fingerprint images of at least 500 x 500 pixels or even larger images. These scanners are mostly intended for use in large-scale AFIS projects that need to collect high quality fingerprint images. An example of AFIS-class scanner is Cross Match Verifier 300

VeriFinger fingerprint template matching algorithm can use more than one processor core on multi-core processors.

(1) For databases with 500 or more fingerprints. Use with smaller sample fingerprint databases typically yields lower speed.

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Reliability and Performance Test Results

All tests were performed on Intel Core2 processor with 4 cores running at 2.66 GHz.

We present the testing results to show how VeriFinger 6.3 technical specifications correspond the practical algorithm's performance and reliability evaluations.

Flat fingerprint databases were collected with two fingerprint scanners for algorithm testing:

DigitalPersona U.are.U 4000. 1,400 fingerprint images were collected using this scanner, with image size 318 x 330 pixels. 

Digital Persona
U.are.U 4000

Click to zoom
Cross Match Verifier 300 LC. 1,600 fingerprint images were collected using this scanner, with image size 504 x 480 pixels. 

Cross Match
Verifier 300 LC

Click to zoom

Three tests were performed with each database:

• Test 1 maximized matching accuracy. VeriFinger 6.3 algorithm reliability in this test is shown as red curves on the ROC charts.
• Test 2 maximized matching speed. VeriFinger 6.3 algorithm reliability in this test is shown as green curves on the ROC charts.
• Test 3 minimized template size. VeriFinger 6.3 algorithm reliability in this test is shown as blue curves on the ROC charts.

Template matching was performed using all 4 cores of the processor.

Receiver operation characteristics (ROC) curves are usually used to demonstrate the recognition quality of an algorithm. ROC curves show the dependence of false rejection rate (FRR) on the false acceptance rate (FAR). Charts with ROC curves for both databases are available on the right.

VeriFinger fingerprint identification algorithm versions consistently have shown some of the best results for reliability in several biometric competitions, including the International Fingerprint Verification Competition (FVC2006, FVC2004, FVC2002 and FVC2000) and the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Fingerprint Vendor Technology Evaluation (FpVTE 2003), where Neurotechnology ranked among the top five companies for accuracy in single-finger tests.

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