Int. J. Knowledge Engineering and Soft Data Paradigms, Vol. 1, No. 3, 2009 239 Copyright © 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Image classification of artificial fingerprints using Gabor wavelet filters, self-organising maps and Hermite/Laguerre neural networks Leif E. Peterson* Center for Biostatistics, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, 6565 Fannin Street, Suite MGJ6-031, Houston, Texas 77030, USA E-mail: lepeterson@tmhs.org *Corresponding author Kirill V. Larin Biomedical Optics Laboratory, Biomedical Engineering Program, University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun Road, N207 Engineering Bldg. 1, Houston, Texas 77204, USA E-mail: klarin@uh.edu Abstract: Image classification was performed using Gabor wavelet filters for image feature extraction, self-organising maps (SOM) for dimensional reduction of Gabor wavelet filters, and forward (FNN), Hermite (HNN) and Laguerre (LNN) neural networks to classify real and artificial fingerprint images from optical coherence tomography (OCT). Use of a SOM after Gabor edge detection of OCT images of fingerprint and material surfaces resulted in the greatest classification performance when compared with moments based on colour, texture and shape. The FNN and HNN performed similarly, however, the LNN performed the worst at a low number of hidden nodes but overtook performance of the FNN and HNN as the number of hidden nodes approached n = 10. Keywords: Hermite neural networks; HNN; Laguerre neural networks; LNN; self-organising maps; SOM; Gabor wavelet filters; image classification. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Peterson, L.E. and Larin, K.V. (2009) ‘Image classification of artificial fingerprints using Gabor wavelet filters, self-organising maps and Hermite/Laguerre neural networks’, Int. J. Knowledge Engineering and Soft Data Paradigms, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp.239–256. Biographical notes: Leif Peterson received his BSc in Nuclear Medicine from Ferris State University in 1981, MPH in Radiological Physics from University of Michigan in 1986 and PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from University of Texas in 1994. He is currently an Associate Professor of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Director of the Centre for Biostatistics, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Houston. His research interests include machine learning and computational intelligence in bioinformatics, oncology and cardiovascular disease.