Robust and Accurate Iris Segmentation Algorithm for Color and Noisy Eye Images

Efficient and robust segmentation of iris images captured in the uncontrolled environments is one of the challenges of non-cooperative iris recognition systems. We address this problem by proposing a novel iris segmentation algorithm, which is suitable both for monochrome and color eye images. The method presented use modified Hough transform to roughly localize the possible iris and pupil boundaries, approximating them by circles. A voting mechanisms is applied to select a candidate iris regions. The detailed iris boundary is approximated by the spline curve. Its shape is determined by minimizing introduced boundary energy function. The described algorithm was submitted to the NICE.I iris image segmentation contest, when it was ranked 11th and 10th out of total 97.