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Handbook of iris recognition

Burge M., Bowyer K., Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated, New York, NY,
2013. 423 pp. Type: Book (978-1-447144-01-4)
Date Reviewed: May 15 2013

The challenge in producing an edited collection of papers is to arrive at a volume that is
unified, complete, and consistent. The editors of this book have succeeded. It is an
excellent summary of the state of theory, technology, and applications of the important
biometric identification modality that uses the characteristics of the iris. John Daugman
has been called the father of iris recognition based on his foundational work in the early
1990s. In his foreword to this book, he mentions the critical notion that the accuracy of a
biometric system is limited by the statistical properties of the anatomic property used as a
basis. He relates iris recognition to the rich characteristics of irises. This is fundamental
and necessary, but not sufficient. Imaging and recognition techniques must be devised to
accurately use this information. This current volume serves as an excellent presentation of
these techniques.
The key overview chapter, "A Survey of Iris Biometrics Research: 2008-2010, by Bowyer
et al., builds on an earlier work that covered the period through 2007. The work covered
includes imaging, segmentation, recognition, fusion, sample quality, and other aspects of
the overall program. If one could only read a single chapter to become acquainted with
the current state of iris recognition, this one would serve very well.
One way to approach the remainder of this book is to think of an iris recognition system
from front to back, beginning with an understanding of the physiological attributes and
methods for collecting them, then feature extraction and storage, followed by matching
and identification, and finally topics related to use and fusion with other biometric
modalities. The first level is well represented here. Clark et al. describe "A Theoretical
Model for Describing Iris Dynamics, beginning with tissue dynamic properties and arriving
at a (moderately) nonlinear model for iris deformation. Baker et al. discuss "Template
Aging in Iris Biometrics, which is essentially an expression of long-term changes in the
iris, showing that it does occur but is likely a slow process. Ackerman, in "Optics of Iris
Imaging Systems, presents an approachable walk-through of major optical
considerations, beginning with the most basic properties of an optical system. Proena
discusses the use of light in the visible spectrum (rather than the more common near-
infrared (NIR)) for iris imaging, and asserts that its potential for use in noncooperative
scenarios is an advantage. Schmid et al. address the vital issue of "Iris Quality Metrics for
Adaptive Authentication, exploring what quality to require of an iris image or record and
how to deal with exceptions.
Once an iris image is acquired, the accurate and robust segmentation and generation of
recognition features is vital. Though the characteristics of the iris are well suited, there are
significant methods and techniques involved; several chapters address these methods.
Jillela et al. present two papers on the segmentation of the iris itself: a survey of the
common methods and a discussion of segmenting problematic images (due to severe lid
and lash obscuration, lighting artifacts, and blurring). Klontz and Burge discuss low-quality
images as well. Several chapters discuss feature extraction. In "An Introduction to the
IrisCode Theory, Kong et al. discuss the IrisCode first developed by Daugman and
dominant in the marketplace. Bastys et al. propose alternative encodings in "Iris
Recognition with Taylor Expansion Features, and Kumar et al. suggest the "Application of
Correlation Filters for Iris Recognition. Both chapters present good recognition
performance. Iris images and template storage are related to feature extraction. Quinn et
al. discuss "Standard Iris Storage Formats, in which "standard means compliance with
the industry standards developed under the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) process.

Object
Recognition
(I.4.8 ... )


Medical
Information
Systems
(J.3 ... )

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Several chapters center on system-wide issues of accuracy and use. Phillips and Flynn
explain the "Quality and Demographic Investigation of ICE 2006, the Iris Challenge
Evaluation that compared leading systems at that time. Burge and Monaco discuss the
fusion of multi-image results in "Multispectral Iris Fusion and Cross-Spectrum Matching,
while Connaughton et al. explore the fusion of faces and iris biometrics collected by a
single sensing station. The security of any biometrics system is a valid and popular
concern. Venugopalan and Savvides address "spoofing, where an iris image is
reconstructed from an IrisCode template and used to fool an iris recognition system. They
see this as an argument for various countermeasures, including template security.
In the interest of testing this excellent volume, I posed several questions about iris
recognition and attempted to find the answers within. I was pleased to see that either
relevant information was present and quickly locatable, or there were sufficient references
for further study. Since the preface claims that this is "the first book to be devoted
entirely to iris recognition, it should be as accurate and complete as a reasonable length
allows. It succeeds on both counts. For anyone interested in iris recognition, this book is
indispensable.
Reviewer: Creed Jones Review #: CR141221

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