| Syllabus / LearningBitByBitFingerprintLab

Fingerprint Lab:

Break into 4 groups

Take fingerprints of each member of the group using the inkpads and cards following the guide at the bottom of this page:
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/takingfps.html

Discover and analyze fingerprints in our immediate environment (ITP) using the latent fingerprint kit following the guide here:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2074683_dust-fingerprints.html
Try to find fingerprints your group members may have left.
You can also check out the CD that came with the fingerprint kit.

Manually compare the set of fingerprints you have on file to the ones you have found. Any matches?

Answer the following questions, pseudo-code if possible and prepare to share with the class: How would you design an algorithm to match fingerprints? What information is important and what isn’t? What advantage might a computer have in analyzing the prints that we don’t have? What advantages do we have?

As a reference point, in 1995 the FBI had 200 million fingerprint records on file, increasing at a rate of 30,000 records a day. Each fingerprint card digitized at 500 DPI takes up approx. 10 Mb. Now taking the best points from each group lets design a fingerprint recognition system as a class, including the initial database design. Imagine we have unlimited time and money...