Inter-Society Color Council
Richard Sewall Hunter was born in Washington, DC, in 1909, to Herbert F. Hunter and Susie Isabel Sewall. He was a pioneering leader in the field of appearance evaluation and measurement. His childhood was spent in Washington where he graduated from the McKinley Technical High School in 1927 [1]. At age 18, he joined the Colorimetry and Photometry Section of the National Bureau of Standards as a minor laboratory apprentice under the energetic Chief Irwin Priest. During his employment at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and over a ten-year period, he attended evening classes at the George Washington University and graduated in 1937 with a major in psychology and a minor in physics. He married Elizabeth Caroline Landman, and they had two children. At the NBS, he designed a visual reflectometer and presented his work at a Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) meeting. In the pursuing years, he met with Deane Judd and was encouraged to build the first multi-purpose reflectometer in 1938, which was later commercialized by the Gardner Laboratories [2]. He passed away just before finishing the final draft of the third edition of his work Color and Appearance Standards in December 1990.
79.1 Laboratory Color Scales
He is, perhaps best known for conceiving the “laboratory” color scales, which in a modified form are still used in the color industry worldwide. His scaling system, originally described in alpha–beta chromaticity coordinates and, later, the a–b chromaticity dimensions, which became known as the HunterLab, consisted of three, attributes: “L” for lightness, “a” representing the degree of red–green, and “b” denoting the blue–yellow content of a given color. This was considered to be easier to comprehend than the previously devised XYZ scale by the CIE. The work was published by the National Bureau of Standards in a circular in 1942 [3, 4]. The concept was based on research by E. Q. Adams at the General Electric Company, who earlier in 1923 had indicated his notion that two signals summed up by the amber minus green and green minus blue were the outputs of the visual system. Later on, Hunter incorporated this opponent-color concept in his colorimeters, which generated a direct readout of this scale.
In 1946, he became Chief Engineer of the Henry A. Gardner Laboratory in Maryland where he designed and developed a number of instruments for the measurement of color and gloss. The need in the paint industry for a gloss meter provided the initial stimulus that directed Hunter’s interest toward geometric attributes of appearance.
In 1952, he formed his own company, Hunter Associates Laboratory, Inc. (HunterLab), which is currently located in Reston, Virginia. His wife joined his company to manage the business aspects of the company and over the years helped him in various capacities. Hunter designed various instruments for different clients including one to measure tomato puree for USDA Grade A rating, a citrus colorimeter for grading frozen orange juice for the Florida Citrus Commission, gloss meters, a distinctness of image meter, an online colorimeter, and other color and appearance measuring instruments. In 1956, he received a large order from Procter and Gamble to build twenty-five colorimeters, and thus, HunterLab became a manufacturing firm and moved to Fairfax, VA and, then in 1979 to Reston.
Hunter was a creative scientist and developed and described measurement procedures that correlate with visual assessments of appearance. Hunter’s achievements during his career included the book The Measurement of Color and Appearance, published in 1975, which was revised and republished in 1987 as well as over one hundred manuscripts. He served as President of the Inter-Society Color Council from 1972 to 1974 and concentrated on solving the complex interrelations between appearance sensations ascribed to spectral characteristics and those generally classed as geometric [5]. He used a patterned or half-silvered mirror for visually comparing two fields of view, and the concept was used many years later in the development of a signaling mirror to aid in the rescue of downed military and civilian aircrews and passengers. His collaboration with Dorothy Nickerson also led to the development of the Nickerson–Hunter photoelectric colorimeter for grading cotton.
He assisted the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) in developing appearance standards dealing with paints, plastics, metals, textiles, and others. He began the work in ASTM publication—Compilation of Color and Appearance Standards which was first published in 1984, and then again in 1987.
He received many recognitions including the ISCC Godlove Award (‘91 posthumously); The ASTM Award of Merit (1961); ASTM Fellow; The Bruning Award of the Federation of Societies for Coatings Technology (1962); The Richardson Award from the Optical Society of America (1970) [6]; Fellow of the Optical Society of America; and The ISCC Macbeth Award (1976). The ASTM Color and Appearance Committee created the annual Richard S. Hunter Award in his honor.