Gemmarum Lapidator is a leading provider of machines for processing and measuring precious stones; its clients are mainly laboratories specializing in stone cutting and top-level jewelers. Among the most prized precious stones on the market are diamonds, and one of the four parameters that influences their market value.
Stakeholders in the industry therefore need accurate information about the color of the diamonds they sell, and of the four parameters, this is the most difficult to determine objectively. Traditionally, color grading is performed by qualified gemologists or specialized institutes, at significant cost and with the natural limitations inherent in any assessment based on human vision.
Gemmarum Lapidator, through its spin-off Gemchrom, turned to Eoptis to develop a tool capable of objectively assessing diamond color grades that would be easy for any user to operate. An innovative tool with two key requirements: absolute precision and a design that would not look out of place on a jeweler’s counter.
Creating this tool meant overcoming multiple challenges for Eoptis. The first is linked to a peculiarity of the sector: a valuable diamond is a colorless diamond; the absence of color is sought rather than its presence. Furthermore, the chromatic component in diamonds is very subtle, at the limit of what is perceptible to the human eye (it is no coincidence that the gradations provided by institutes relying on human evaluation are often contradictory). Distinguishing between closely related color grades was the first challenge for Eoptis.
The absence of absolute standards in the sector was a second challenge. The process unfolded in two phases: initially, the client assessed a large sample of stones (approximately 5,000) in order to develop a pioneering map of color gradations using statistical criteria; then Eoptis and Fondazione Bruno Kessler (a leading European research center that the tech company is proud to have as a technical and scientific partner) analyzed Gemmarum Lapidator’s work, identifying rules to consistently determine color gradations in a repeatable manner.
A third challenge was to develop a highly specific setup for measuring the way the diamond interacts with light. This required the design of a mechanical device inside the instrument to correctly position the diamond: not an easy task, considering the small size of a diamond’s table (that is, the flat facet on the top of the stone).
In addition to creating a high-tech solution capable of generating real value for a leading company such as Gemmarum Lapidator, Eoptis has developed a patent owned by the client and co‑invented by the tech company. The tool has been added by Gemmarum Lapidator (through its spin-off Gemchrom) to its portfolio of products and is an example of Eoptis’ unique multidisciplinary know-how, combining optics, electronics, mechanics, and software to ensure the highest levels of reliability and precision.
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