GIA Symposium 2006 - Poster Sessions

The GIA Symposium featured “Poster Sessions,” held on the Hyatt’s lower level. Colored stones, treatments, analysis, geology, education, marketing, jewelry design and other topics had representation. Poster presenters were on hand at specified times to discuss their displays. Several examples follow:

Jason Quick of AGS laboratories was the host in a space featuring detailed analysis of components of the AGS performance-based diamond cut grading system.

One of the AGSL graphics showed examples of different components incorporated into (or being researched for) AGSL’s light performance metric: Grayscale 30 and 40, ASET 30 and 40, forward and reverse fire maps, refraction/virtual facet modeling and an angular spectrum diagram.

Another graphic in the AGSL area showed VLVF(Very Large Very Fine) matrices. Briefly described, the 2 large ‘modern art’ seeming murals below are actually mosaics, each composed of 62,500 individual ASET (L) or fire map (R) images. The zoomed relief shows a rectangle of individual images near Tolkowsky’s diamond. In addition to being technically interesting these matrices are beautiful and colorful and have been nicknamed ‘The DNA of diamond design.’

Nikolai Kouznetsov’s space featured information on the demantoid, the most brilliant variety of green garnet. It is the “chromium-green variety of androdite discovered in the Central Ural mountains of Russia in the mid 19th century.” It's hardness is almost 7, refractive index is 1.89 and dispersion is .057 (diamond is .044). Many people are not aware of the demantoid, which is one of the most brilliant gemstones in the world.

Sergey Sivovolenko of OctoNus displayed a reiteration of the presentation he and Yuri Shelementiev gave for the GRC on “Fancy-Color Diamonds: Better Color Appearance by Optimizing Cut.” In addition to the process of rough planning, they showed several configurations (actual and modeled in DiamCalc) under different illumination conditions to demonstrate brightness, saturation and contrast appearances.

GIA laboratories’ Al Gilbertson is one of the pioneers of modern reflector technology, and among the first to develop multi-colored analysis. In addition to discussing aspects of the new GIA cut grading system he hosted a fantastic space on “The Evolution of the American Round Brilliant Diamond.”

Another pioneer of reflector technology is Garry Holloway, who created Ideal-Scope and popularized it via the internet. Holloway’s space proposed a plan for peer review of diamond grading labs, maintaining that unification of standards, particularly among softer labs, could improve reputability and consumer confidence in the industry.

In all, nearly 100 spaces hosted experts willing to interact with symposium attendees one on one.