Evaluation of contrast enhancement methods on finger vein NIR images

Biometrics is a technology used to identify a person based on physical characteristics and behavioural characteristics. Biometrics is used to increase the importance of personal data. However, many biometric models can be manipulated, such as fingerprints. To cover the fragility, a biometric pattern based on a blood vein, such as a finger vein pattern, was developed. To obtain a clear image of the finger vein, one of the acquisition toolsused is called Near-Infrared (NIR). Despite using NIR technology in the acquisition process, it is not uncommon for the finger vein pattern to be unclear. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to increase the contrast quality of the image. This study proposes the use of the BPDFHE method to improve the contrast quality of finger vein NIR images. As a comparison material for performance tests, the HE, AHE, and CLAHE methods were also tested. The test is carried out according to AMBE, PSNR, SSIM, FSIM, and computation time parameters. Based on the test, the results showed that the BPDFHE obtains AMBE, PSNR, SSIM, and FSIM up to 0.054, 26.873, 0.840, and 0.906, respectively. It also gains less computation time up to 10.988 seconds. These results indicate that BPDFHE is an effective and efficient method in improving the contrast quality of finger vein NIR images. (paper)