Drena and I visited Dave Atlas' lab in Philadelphia. I first made contact with Dave around the late 1980's when I asked permission to use his fancy cut grading charts in lectures at the Aussie GAA diamond course. Dave has done a lot of work with ImaGem and the next photo shows from the left, Dave Atlas with Prof. Lalit Aggarwal and me to the right in the AGA back room with the ImaGem large machine behind Dave and Prof A, with the small Clarity immersion machine behind me.

These next 4 photo's show the stone being placed table down in the clarity machine in a small plastic dish filled with “liquid 2” which is a proprietary liquid that reduces the RI of the diamond so that a better photo of the inclusions can be captured. Note in a black lighting dome has dropped down to cover the stone; the hole in the top is for the camera view.

From this bottom view the software 'flips' the stone so the inclusion plot is able to be shown table up. This operation requires an expert operator which will somewhat slow down what was originally designed as a semi automated process.

This first shot shows the captured. Next the red inclusion maps appear over the photo. The outer dark regions were reflection patterns that the operator discounted completely by clicking and dragging the sensitivity for both the table or the outer crown area independently. Lowering this sensitivity missed some inclusions – but the operator mouse clicked individual smaller inclusions which were automatically highlighted in red. The intention of the system is to grade VS2 to SI3 stones and automatically develop inclusion plots from the front side. Higher level inclusions (Flawless to VVS) could be done too (I was told) but this requires a number of photo's to be taken to cover the stone depth of field.

The operator then pressed a key and the system calculated the frontal view. But this plot would be a sale killer on an SI3 / I1 stone, so they developed a representative system that uses accepted signs. If you follow the progress in the images below you will see the two large inclusions have been highlighted blue, and from a drop down menu they have been turned into (in this case) Internal fractures which are represented only by pairs of parallel lines. The table up plot (and the pavilion up if required) can then be printed in any format from credit card to full report.

Next we moved from the clarity system to the main system, the big central box and screen to the left.

The little grey door in the upper left side, above the white Logo square, hinges open and the stone is placed inside, table down on a glass tray.

A little lever with a tiny cup is lowered over the culet to center the diamond.