Methods for Iris Segmentation

Under ideal image acquisition conditions, the iris biometric has been observed to provide high recognition performance compared to other biometric traits. Such a performance is possible by accurately segmenting the iris region from the given ocular image. This chapter discusses the challenges associated with the segmentation process, along with some of the prominent iris segmentation techniques proposed in the literature. The methods are presented according to their suitability for segmenting iris images acquired under different wavelengths of illumination. Furthermore, methods to refine and evaluate the output of the iris segmentation routine are presented. The goal of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of the progress made in iris segmentation.