Research on the Segmenting Methods of Fingerprint Image Zhang ZhengYan, Xu RongQing (School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang 212003) Abstract: The two common means for segmenting the fingerprint image are variance method and directional method. After investigating and analyzing the two methods, this paper presents a new approach to segmenting the fingerprint images based on the maximum between-cluster variance (MBV). This method segments the fingerprint images by means of the MBV and the technology of dividing the images into blocks. The experimental results indicate that this method performs well on the fingerprint images with high and low contrast.. Compared with the two common methods, this new method not only has the advantage in choosing the threshold without the experience, but also works faster. This method is more suitable for real-time processing. Key words: fingerprint images; MBV; segmentation