Image compact formats of iris samples for interoperability in biometric systems

In order to lower data storage requirements for ID tokens or databases, compact formats are needed in any biometric modality. As there is no morphological parameters that could help in reducing data, as it happens with minutiae in fingerprints, iris needs a data reduction at the raw image level. This is becoming quite a controversial issue among this technology community. Two major approaches are suggested. The first one is using cropped sub-images of the sample acquired. The second one is using a polar representation of the iris. This paper reflects one of the parallel works that is been carried out in order to achieve such a compact format. Authors have studied several representations from both approaches. They have analyzed data size requirements and processing time, while some important remarks about interoperability are given.