ANSI 378

File Format
Name	ANSI 378
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Forensics and Law Enforcement ANSI 378
Extension(s)	.fmrpiv, .dat
Released	2004

ANSI 378, alternatively ANSI/INCITS 378 is a format that stores a description of the minutae (differentiating features) of fingerprints, for production from a fingerprint scan and use by a fingerprint matcher. It is produced by the American National Standards Institute, and the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards, giving its name. There are three major versions:

• ANSI 378-2004; "[w]hen people mention ANSI 378 without specifying version, they usually refer to this original 2004 version."
• ANSI 378-2009, similar but incompatible
  • ANSI 378-2009/AM1, a slight variation ("AM" is short for "amendment")

Identification

ANSI 378 files will begin with 46 4D 52 00, which is ASCII "FMR" followed by a zero byte. Following this is the version identifier, which is 20 32 30 00 (" 20" followed by a zero byte) for the 2004 version, 30 33 30 00 ("030" then zero byte) for the 2009 version, and 30 33 35 00 ("035", zero byte) for the 2009/AM1 version. The magic number and format of the 2004 version are the same as for the related but incompatible ISO 19794-2; gives an algorithm to tell them apart.

Specification

• The official specifications (all 60 dollars):
  • 378-2004
  • 378-2009
  • 378-2009/AM1
• Robert Važan's unofficial specifications

Software

• FingerprintIO (Java library)
• BiomDI

Sample Files

• NIST samples, from [1] (in a tar/gzip archive)

Links

• INCITS page
• Overview ofANSI INCITS Fingerprint Standards on Data Interchange Format

See Also

• ANSI 381
• ISO 19794-2
• WSQ