Timothy R. O'Neill (1943 – November 9, 2023) was a
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...
officer, professor and
camouflage expert, who in 1976 invented Dual-Tex, the first pattern of what would later be called
digital camouflage. He has been called "father of digital camouflage". O'Neill wrote two works of fiction. In 1979 he published ''
The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien, and the Archetypes of Middle-Earth''.
Biography
Timothy O'Neill was educated at
The Citadel, Charleston, gaining a bachelor's degree in political science; the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...
, studying
MACT and
experimental psychology
Experimental psychology is the work done by those who apply Experiment, experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ Research participant, human participants and Animal testing, anim ...
; and after joining the army, the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
, where he gained his PhD in Experimental Psychology with a concentration in visual
biophysics
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...
, writing his dissertation on "visual attraction of
Blumian symmetry axes of visual forms". He served in the
U. S. Army for 25 years from 1966. He served initially as a commander of tank and armoured cavalry units. He gained a doctorate in camouflage, testing his ideas in the field at
Fort Knox
Fort Knox is a United States Army installation in Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Elizabethtown. It is adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository (also known as Fort Knox), which is used to house a larg ...
, Kentucky. In 1976, this work gained him a post as instructor at the
West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...
military academy, where he founded and was the first director of the program in engineering psychology. His work on
digital camouflage led to the camouflage used on
Army Combat Uniform
The Army Combat Uniform (ACU) is the current combat uniform worn by the United States Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Space Force and some elements of the U.S. Coast Guard. Within the Air Force and Space Force, it is referred to as the OCP ( Op ...
. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. He retired from the army in 1991.
[
O'Neill then worked in industry, in Provant, Inc, and in U. S. Cavalry Security Gear and Systems, Inc. From 2001, he has frequently served as a camouflage consultant, working for the U. S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps; the ]FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
; and the armed forces of Afghanistan, Canada, New Zealand, and Qatar. He assisted in the design of hunting camouflage for W. L. Gore & Associates, creating the Optifade pattern, based for the first time on study of the vision of deer, i.e. the animals that are to be fooled by the camouflage: it combines macro- and micro-patterns, and is said to work "amazingly well". For Hyperstealth Corp., he and the company's founder Guy Cramer designed the Razzacam pattern, said by David Rothenberg
David Rothenberg (born 1962) is a professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, with a special interest in animal sounds as music. He is also a composer and jazz musician whose books and recordings reflect a long ...
to be based on World War I dazzle camouflage
Dazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle (in the U.S.) or dazzle painting, is a type of ship camouflage that was used extensively in World War I, and to a lesser extent in World War II and afterwards. Credited to the British marine art ...
"with pixelated and dithered patterns that are dizzying to look at, confounding our ability to parse their organizational structure". Also with Cramer, O'Neill developed a snow camouflage
Snow camouflage is the use of a coloration or pattern for effective camouflage in winter, often combined with a different summer camouflage. Summer patterns are typically disruptively patterned combinations of shades of browns and greys, up to b ...
pattern for the U. S. Marine Corps.
O'Neill was married to Eufrona O'Neill and they lived in Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in Northern Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Washington, D.C., D.C. The city's population of 159,467 at the 2020 ...
,[ and later in ]Roswell, Georgia
Roswell is a city in northern Fulton County, Georgia, United States. At the official 2020 census, the city had a population of 92,883, making Roswell the state's ninth largest city. A suburb of Atlanta, Roswell has an affluent National Registe ...
. He died in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 9, 2023, aged 80.
Digital camouflage
In 1976, O'Neill created a pixellated pattern named "Dual-Tex". He called the digital approach "texture match". The initial work was done by hand on a retired M113 armoured personnel carrier
An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world.
Acc ...
at the Aberdeen Proving Ground
Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work at APG. There are 11 major commands among the tenant units, ...
in Maryland; O'Neill painted the pattern on with a 2-inch (5 centimetre) roller, forming squares of colour by hand. Field testing showed that the result was good compared to the U. S. Army's existing camouflage patterns
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...
. At a distance, the squares merged into a larger pattern, breaking up the vehicle's outline and making it blend into the background of trees. Closer up, the pattern successfully imitated smaller details of the landscape, appearing as leaves, grass tufts, and shadows.
O'Neill was quoted in a report by an American government watchdog, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which was critical of wasteful Pentagon spending. O'Neill is reported as stating of the camouflage pattern then in use: "Desert designs don't work well in woodland areas and woodland patterns perform poorly in the desert." In O'Neill's view, "it is best to tailor the spatial characteristics and color palette of a camouflage pattern to the specific environment and tactical position where those using the camouflage would be inclined to hide."
Author
'' The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien, and the Archetypes of Middle-Earth'' (1979) is a critical study of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
. Tolkien scholar Thomas Honegger called it "the unsurpassed standard work on the subject" (2019).
O'Neill was the author of two novels. ''Shades of Gray'' (1987) is about a West Point psychologist investigating mysterious happenings on campus. ''Mandala'' (2014) concerns a mysterious structure in Montana that has psychological and mythic properties.
Distinctions
O'Neill has been called the father of digital camouflage. He featured in the 2015 Australian documentary film ''Deception by Design''.
Bibliography
* 1979 '' The Individuated Hobbit''
* 2013 ''Shades of Gray'' (novel)
* 2014 ''Mandala'' (novel)
References
External links
About Timothy O'Neill
{{DEFAULTSORT:ONeill, Timothy
1943 births
2023 deaths
United States Army officers
Camouflage researchers