Impact of common ophthalmic disorders on iris segmentation

As iris recognition moves from constrained indoor and near-infrared systems towards unconstrained on-the-move and at-a-distance systems, possibly using visible light illumination, interest in measurement of the fidelity of the acquired images and their impact on recognition performance has grown. However, the impact of the subject's physiological characteristics on the nature of the acquired images has received little attention. In this paper we catalog a selection of the most common ophthalmic disorders and investigate some of their characteristics including their prevalence and possible impact on recognition performance. The paper also includes an experimental exploration of the effect of such conditions on segmentation of the iris image.