The SOCIA Lab. (Soft Computing and Image Analysis Group) of the
Department of Computer Science, University of Beira Interior
(Portugal) is organizing a new iris segmentation contest: NICE.I
(Noisy Iris Challenge Evaluation - Part I).

Within this laboratory we developed and publicly released the UBIRIS
database (http://iris.di.ubi.pt). Since
September, 2005, this database has been freely downloaded by more than
500 individuals and institutions from over 70 countries and its data
constituted the basis for a large number of works with academic,
research and commercial purposes.

In the iris recognition compass, the robustness to noise receives
growing attention.  Many efforts are focused toward the accurate iris
recognition within less constrained image capturing environments,
probably toward the covert iris recognition in a near future.

To support such research developments, we created a new version of the
UBIRIS database (UBIRIS.v2). This version is significantly extended,
has new and more realistic noise factors and will be used as data
source for the Noisy Iris Challenge Contest - Part I (NICE.I).

Basically, the NICE.I is a completely free-of-charge iris segmentation
and noise detection contest that operates on noisy data, resultant
from less constrained image capturing conditions. Its main purpose is
the evaluation of the iris segmentation robustness to noise
factors. Its is open to individuals and institutions, either with
academic, research or commercial purposes. Moreover, the NICE.I
contest will be the only way to legally obtain the UBIRIS.v2 database
within the next 24 months.

Also, the participants that achieve the lowest error rates on the
NICE.I contest will be invited to publish their approach on the
Elsevier Image and Vision Computing Journal, (ISI Web of Knowledge
indexed) through a journal's special issue.

Detailed information can be found at the contest web site: http://nice1.di.ubi.pt