Henry Hemmendinger

Henry Hemmendinger (1915–2003) was an American color scientist.

Early career

Hemmendinger's work in color standardization and measurement established him as one of the world's preeminent experts in color science. After graduating from Harvard and Princeton, Hemmendinger joined the U.S. Navy and worked in submarine warfare research. During his service, he met his future business partner Hugh Davidson. After the war, both men worked in general physics at General Aniline & Film Corporation, where they became increasingly interested in colorimetry and color theory. Their first contribution to the field was their development of the Automatic Tristimulus Integrator, the first device to enable rapid automatic measurement of XYZ values of the color spectrum.

Development of color-matching computers

In 1952 Hemmendinger and Davidson left General Aniline & Film to form Davidson and Hemmendinger. Their first successful product was a colorant-mixture analog computer, COMIC, introduced in 1958, the first automated color matching system. Hemmendinger also evaluated colors for the Munsell books, and his contributions are still used as standards.

In 1967, Hemmendinger and Davidson developed COMIC II, a digital version of their earlier color matching computer. Shortly after this, their company was sold to Kollmorgen and combined with their Macbeth Instrument Development Laboratories. Hemmendinger left Kollmorgen in 1970 and formed the Hemmendinger Color Laboratory, a consulting firm specializing in colorimetric and spectrophotometric standards

Contributions to the field

Hemmendinger received the Godlove Award from the [http://ISCC.org Inter-Society Color Council] for his work, [Brill, M.: "Hemmendinger receives Godlove award" Inter-Society Color Council News 364, December 1996] and frequently consulted with the National Bureau of Standards. His companies were frequently the only U.S. supplier of calibrated color materials used to evaluate color measurement instruments.

elected publications

*cite journal
last = Hemmendinger
first = Henry
coauthors = Lambert, J.M.
title = The importance of chromaticity in the evaluation of whiteness
journal = Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society
volume = XXX
issue = 4
date = April 1953

*cite journal
last = Hemmendinger
first = Henry
coauthors = Davidson, Hugh
title = Analytic comparison of color-difference equations
journal = JOSA
volume = 52
issue = 9
date = September, 1962
*cite journal
last = Hemmendinger
first = Henry
coauthors = Johnston, Ruth M.
title = A goniospectrophotemer for color measurements
journal = COLOR
date = March, 1969
*cite journal
last = Hemmendinger
first = Henry
title = The development of color-difference formulas
journal = Journal of Paint Technology
volume = 42
issue = 542
date = March, 1970
*cite journal
last = Hemmendinger
first = Henry
title = Enhancement of chroma by the design of illuminants
journal = COLOR Research and Application
volume = 3
issue = 2
date = Summer 1978
*cite journal
last = Hemmendinger
first = Henry
title = The role of opponency in twentieth century colorimetry
journal = Color Research and Application
volume = 24
issue = 1
month = February
year = 1999
pages = 6–9
doi = 10.1002/(SICI)1520-6378(199902)24:1<6::AID-COL4>3.0.CO;2-M
doilabel = 10.1002/(SICI)1520-6378(199902)24:16::AID-COL43.0.CO;2-M

ources

[http://www.hagley.org/a2325.pdf Hemmendinger papers] at the Hagley Museum and Library

References