Patent ID: 8471176

Claim:
An apparatus for examining and marking a raw diamond, comprising: (a) a die for holding the raw diamond; (b) a first servo motor for moving said die vertically; (c) a second servo motor for rotating said die axially; (d) a laser scanner that maps the surface coordinates of the raw diamond as the die is rotated through 360 degrees by said second servo motor and progressively moved vertically by said first servo motor after each rotation; (e) a computer that controls the movement of the first and second servo motors and produces a three-dimensional image of said raw diamond based on the surface coordinates mapped by the laser scanner; (f) a software program in said computer that calculates the mass and weight of the diamond and calculates a best fit cut that maximizes the size of a cut diamond within the constraints of the mass and the volume of the raw diamond as determined by the laser scanner; and (g) a marking device controlled by said computer that marks cutting points on the surface of the raw diamond according to said calculated best fit cut.