Fingerprint Patterns - Central Pocket Whorls
Fingerprint Patterns - Central Pocket Whorls |
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Technical Definition: A central pocket whorl consists of at least one recurving ridge, or an obstruction at right angles to the line of flow, with two deltas, between which when an imaginary line is drawn, no recurving ridge within the pattern area is cut or touched.
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| Image #1 | Image #2 | Image #3 |
If you look at the pattern area of the three images at left you will notice that the actual lines that make a "circle" are very close to the center and there are not very many of them, in fact only about two or three on Image #1 and about the same on Image #2.
To make the determination of the type of pattern we must draw an imaginary line between the two deltas that appear on the print. In Image #3 I have drawn a red line to act as the imaginary line between the two deltas and if you study this you will see that the ridges that form the inner pattern are not crossed by this imaginary line. This makes it a central pocket whorl by definition. If the ridges of the inner pattern were crossed then this would be a plain whorl.
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| Central Pocket | Plain Whorl | Double Loop |
Let's looks at some comparisons between a central pocket whorl and the other types: When compared side-by-side the differences become a little more obvious. If you look at Image #1 you can see that the imaginary line (in red) does not cut across any ridges which form the inner pattern area. But if you look at Image #2 you can see that the imaginary line does, in fact, cut across the inner pattern area (or the ridges which form or tend to form a circle). The pattern in Image #3 might at first glance be taken for a plain whorl because if you were to draw the imaginary line it would cut the pattern area, but you will notice there are two core area's in this pattern, which are shown by the red pointers. Because of the two cores this pattern is a double loop whorl.
A central pocket whorl in NCIC Classification is denoted as a "C" with the second number, which is either "I", "O" or "M" coming from the whorl tracing. In the case shown above with the caption "Central Pocket" this is a Central Pocket Whorl with an Outer Tracing and would be denoted in NCIC code as "CO".