Fingerprint indexing via BRIEF minutia descriptors

We use BRIEF binary local image descriptors as minutia descriptors for indexing of biometric fingerprint databases. Tests with varying descriptor size and parametrisation are performed on a proprietary database. Compared with the speed of an implementation of conventional minutiae matching, we find that BRIEF descriptors are fast enough for database indexing. The tested descriptors outperform two other image descriptors (LBP, HoG) from recent literature with respect to matching rates and average penetration rates.