Fingerprint Patterns - Plain Whorls
Fingerprint Patterns - Plain Whorls |
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| Image #1 | Image #2 | Image #3 |
As with any whorl there must be more than 1 valid delta or else it is a loop. Look at Image #1 and you should be able to identify the two delta's. If not then look at Image #2 and you will see that they are displayed in the red boxes.
The technical definition of a plain whorl is a whorl which consists of one or more ridges which make or tend to make a complete circuit, with two delta's, between which an imaginary line is drawn and at least one recurving ridge within the inner pattern area is cut or touched. Whew! Okay did you follow that? Here is a layman's explanation of what that technical definition means.
Notice the inner area of the pattern, that is the area which tends to form a circle? This is what you would call the inner pattern area and it is what make a whorl look like a whorl. Okay, now looking at the specific ridges that are making or trying to make the circle lets say we were to draw an imaginary line between the two delta's (the red line in Image #3) then we can see that this line does intersect the same lines or line that tend to form the circle.
Okay now lets take a closer look so maybe this will become more clear about what is sufficient and what is not sufficient to be a plain whorl.
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| Image #4 | Image #5 | Image #6 |
Take a look at Image #4
and you can see the inner pattern area in yellow that forms or tends to form the circle
part of the loop. Notice now that if we draw a line from delta-to-delta we do not
intersect the lines that are forming the circle? The same thing is true for Image
#5. Take a look at Image #5 and see if you can determine the
inner pattern, that being the ridges that form or tend to form a circle. Can you see that
if a line is drawn again from delta-to-delta that no lines that form the circle are
intersected?
Now look at Image #6 and see if you can identify the ridges that are
forming or tending to form the circle or inner pattern. Notice now that when we draw a
line from delta-to-delta that this inner pattern, or the lines forming the circle are
intersected? Image #4 and Image #5 are examples of Central Pocket whorls. Image #6 is
a plain whorl.
This is the first part of identifying a particular whorl. In this process we merely identified the pattern type. In this case we have identified what it takes to be a plain whorl. In the scheme of the NCIC Classification this is denoted as a "P". The next process, and thus the second letter required for NCIC classification is the tracing of the whorl.