US Patent 6941003 Method of fast fingerprint search space partitioning and prescreening

A method of fast fingerprint search space partitioning and prescreening is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of: inputting the contents of a fingerprint repository comprising file fingerprints for index creation; creating an index based on each minutia and selected neighbors of each minutia in each file fingerprint in the repository; searching the index to identify all minutiae which correspond to the minutiae in a search fingerprint; and analyzing results of this search to determine which file fingerprints contributed the most minutiae with the best correspondence to the minutiae in the search fingerprint.