Image software identifies people by their ears

The so-called ’Image Ray Transform’ can be used to extract tubular and circular features in an image − such as the curved rim at the top of the ear, known as the helix − that are not often found by other techniques.

The transform was developed by Prof Mark Nixon, Dr John Carter and Alastair Cummings from the university’s School of Electronics and Computer Science. Prof Nixon, one of the UK’s earliest researchers in this field, first proved that ears were a viable biometric in 2005.

Cummings explained that the Image Ray Transform works by acquiring an image of the ear and uploading it to a computer. The program then shines thousands of virtual light rays through the image.

The paths of these rays are used to generate a new image, with tubular and circular features emphasised. The image is then reformatted into a matrix of two-dimensional glass blocks, each representing a pixel whose refractive index is related to the intensity of the pixel in the image.