Abstract: An image comparison arrangement uses an electronic computer to compare digitized fingerprint minutia maps of fingerprints of an unknown fingerprint set with corresponding maps of reference fingerprint sets which are stored in memory, in order to identify unknown fingerprints or to match fingerprints. The matching is performed by converting all the fingerprints to attributed relation graphs (ARGs) including nodes and branches, to which attributes are appended. For each fingerprint pair being compared, a distance matrix is generated, the elements of which are the similarities of stars. The highest-ranking star pair is selected as the starting point of a comparison tree, by which attempts are made to fill a match core with elements representing the matching stars. The comparison is of the various attributes of the nodes and branches of each star.