So, they found a big diamond in Argyle the other day, which got me thinking about finding the optimal way of cutting a rough diamond. Key parts of this is knowing the value of different cuts of different sizes, which a colleague of mine told me is documented in a thing called the rapaport. This gives the value of certain cuts of diamond for different weights and qualities.
So I was thinking that one could scan the diamond, build a 3d map of it and then try to maximise the value realised from the diamond by fitting cut diamonds into the rough diamonds. Things to consider:
- Inclusions reduce the value of diamonds,
- Diamond prices are nonlinearly related to weight
- Cutting and polishing is a time-consuming and expensive process
Some of these points have been addressed with some significant simplifications in this paper, but there is a lot of scope for improvement. Too many ideas, too little time.