The possibilities of a rough diamond are endless.
Extracted from the earth after a natural formation process that took millions of years, a rough stone holds the potential to transform into almost any type of polished diamond. It may become one large, bold diamond or perhaps split into three smaller, exquisite gems.
It could become a classic round brilliant, a Deco-inspired emerald cut, or a modern pear shape, or even a combination of these.
Every facet and angle plays a critical role in how the final polished diamond reflects light, shines brilliance, and ultimately captivates the viewer.
And it all begins with rough planning.
How to Extract the Most From a Rough Diamond: Look Inside
Behind every polished diamond lies a sophisticated planning process. The way a rough diamond is planned and polished depends on several factors, including:
- Size and shape of the original rough diamond: The natural size, shape, and geometry of a rough diamond often dictate the best way to cut it to maximize the carat weight of the polished yield.
- Inclusions: Internal flaws or impurities inside a diamond, such as minerals or fractures, strongly impact the planning options. The position, size, and visibility of inclusions directly affect the clarity of the diamond and its subsequent appearance and value.
- Optimizing carat weight: The goal in rough planning is often to retain as much carat weight as possible while still achieving a visually pleasing shape and symmetry, as well as optimal clarity and light performance.
- Market demand: Retailer and consumer preferences for certain shapes, sizes, or clarity grades can affect how a rough diamond is planned. For example, if demand is high for princess cut diamonds, the rough planning can be adjusted towards yielding more diamonds of this shape.
Before the advent of internal diamond scanning and mapping capabilities, rough planning was a ‘blind’ activity. Diamond producers could not take the internal inclusions and flaws into account, drastically hindering the options for planning the future polished diamond.
Now, with computer vision technology, diamond manufacturers can see inside the very structure of a rough stone and understand its internal features, using that critical information to maximize the yield and beauty of each stone, ensuring that every diamond meets its full potential.
The Diamond Planning Process: Step by Step with Sarine
With technologies like Sarine Galaxy®, Sarine Advisor® and Most Valuable Planning (MVP) software, manufacturers can look beyond the surface of a rough diamond and optimize the rough planning process to unprecedented levels of accuracy and value.
Let's walk through the rough planning process with Sarine’s mapping and planning technology and explore the potential:
Inclusion Scanning with Sarine Galaxy®
The first step in rough planning is to understand the diamond’s internal structure. Sarine’s Galaxy® systems scan rough diamonds and create a high-resolution map of its inclusions. This vital data enables manufacturers to assess potential yield and estimate the best way to cut the rough stone.
With this map as a guide, manufacturers can develop a rough plan that takes full advantage of the diamond’s natural characteristics, positioning facets, and cuts to maximize value.
Rough Planning with Sarine Advisor®
Sarine Advisor® is the leading rough diamond planning software in the world, using inclusion scanning and 3D geometrical analysis to create highly optimized polishing plans based on the manufacturer’s preferences for carat weight, clarity, cut and symmetry.
Advisor® has the capability to create multiple rough plans in minutes, based on variable inputs provided by the manufacturer. This enables diamond producers to examine a vast range of planning options that maximize both yield and beauty, which would be impossible to achieve manually.
Sarine Advisor® 8.2 offers a range of optimized features designed specifically for rough planning of LGD (lab-grown diamonds), bringing added value to the software’s capabilities.
Most Valuable Planning Software
Sarine’s latest innovation, the Most Valuable Planning (MVP) software, builds on Advisor®’s capabilities to add another layer of planning precision. MVP uses an advanced AI-based algorithm to perform a deep automated analysis of each rough diamond, instantly determining the most profitable way to cut the diamond based on various parameters.
The MVP software is fully cloud-based, hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and offers automated decision-making that takes into account all available data. This integration minimizes manual input errors and enhances profitability by as much as 5% for each diamond.
An add-on to Sarine Advisor®, MVP is an optional feature charged on a per-use basis only. Manufacturers can choose to use MVP on a specific rough diamond in a single click, ensuring the maximum possible value without needing to invest in new hardware or systems.
Natural Diamonds and LGD: Planning for Beauty
While natural and lab-grown diamonds have their differences, Sarine’s diamond planning technologies are expertly designed to optimize both.
With natural diamonds, the focus is often on retaining as much of the original stone’s weight as possible while achieving a high-quality polished result. As prices for natural diamonds remain high, every percentage increase in carat weight and clarity directly impacts profitability. Sarine’s technology enables manufacturers to plan polished diamonds that use maximum rough diamond with maximum beauty and value. This is critical to minimize waste and increase profits.
For LGDs, the cost of production has declined significantly in recent years. The market often values quality and cost efficiency over maximizing carat weight. Sarine Advisor® 8.2 offers unique planning features specifically for LGD, enabling manufacturers to develop optimized plans for synthetic diamonds with efficiency and accuracy.
Part of the Diamond Journey
A diamond purchase is not an everyday matter – most people will only buy a diamond once or just a few times in their lives. Diamonds are a high value product, both emotionally and fiscally. Today’s consumers need to truly know and trust the diamond’s provenance and features to make this significant purchase decision with peace of mind.
Understanding the diamond’s journey from rough stone to polished jewel is a powerful way that retailers can help customers connect deeply and authentically to a diamond.
Sarine’s Diamond Journey™ report incorporates the planning images and even video of the diamond, providing the customer with the visual story of the diamond’s history as it evolved from rough to polished. Sarine's traceability solution enables the customer to see the rough diamond from which the polished diamond was born, understand the complex cutting process with intuitive images and videos, and own this verified information in an exciting, interactive digital report of their very own diamond.
The Diamond Journey™ report harnesses Sarine’s rough planning data to bring the diamond to life, making it more real, more beautiful, and more attractive to the customer.
See, Plan, Profit
Sarine’s rough planning technology optimizes the diamond manufacturing yield in several ways:
● Quality
● Beauty
● Profitability
And with the Diamond Journey™ report, Sarine optimizes the customer experience too, supporting the diamond’s provenance with compelling visuals and data about the diamond’s rough planning history.
As Sarine continues to innovate, consumers and manufacturers alike benefit from Sarine’s advanced rough planning process that maximizes the diamond’s potential, and the trusted traceability report that brings the brilliance of the diamond and its unique story to the retail floor.
Contact out sales team today to learn more about our diamond manufacturing solutions.
