Recent Progress in Visualization and Analysis of Fingerprint Level 3 Features

Abstract Fingerprints provide sufficient and reliable discriminative characteristics which have been considered one of the most robust evidence for individualization. The limitation of current minutiae‐based fingerprint technology seems to be solved with the development of level 3 features since they can offer additional information for problematic fingerprint recognition and even donor profiling. So far, tremendous efforts have been devoted to detecting and analysing the third‐level details. This review summarizes the advances in level 3 details with an emphasis on their reliability assessment, visualization methods based on physical interaction, residue‐response, mass spectrometry and electrochemical techniques, as well as the potentiality for individualization, donor profiling and even other application scenarios. In the end, we also give a personal perspective on the future direction and the remaining challenges in the third‐level‐detail‐related field. We believe that the new exciting progress is expected in the development of level 3 detail detection and analysis with continued interest and attention to this field.