FORM 2
THE PATENTS ACT, 1970
(39 of 1970)
&
THE PATENTS RULES, 2003
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION
(See section 10, rule 13)
1. Title of the invention: GEMSTONE ALIGNMENT APPARATUS
2. Applicant(s)
NAME
NATIONALITY
ADDRESS
SAHAJANAND TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED
Indian
Sahajanand Estate, Wakharia Wadi, Near Dabholi Char Rasta, Ved Road, Surat- 395 004 Gujarat, India
3. Preamble to the description
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION
The following specification particularly describes the invention and the manner in which it is to be performed.
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TECHNICAL FIELD
[001] The present subject matter relates, in general, to techniques for pro-cessing gemstones.
BACKGROUND 5
[002] A rough gemstone may acquire an ornamental property after undergo-ing various a variety of processes, such as cutting, shaping and polishing. Some tech-niques may be used for cutting and shaping gemstones, namely laser cutting technique. Further, shaping and cutting of rough gemstone may depend on a structure, a hardness of the rough gemstone. Generally, a gemstone cutting apparatus based on laser cutting 10 technique may employ a laser as a source for cutting the gemstones. During cutting procedure, the gemstone is positioned on a platform and a laser beam is incident on the surface and to remove unwanted portions of the rough gemstone. Generally, prior to the cutting of the gemstone, the rough gemstone may be aligned with respect to a point of reference of the gemstone cutting apparatus. Thereafter, during the polishing opera-15 tion, gemstone surface is processed to form surfaces such as, table, crown, girdle and pavilion on the gemstone.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
[003] The detailed description is described with reference to the accompany-20 ing figures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. The same numbers are used throughout the drawings to reference like features and components.
[004] Fig.1A illustrates an example a gemstone processing system, in accord-ance with an implementation the present subject matter. 25
[005] Fig. 1B illustrates an example gemstone cutting apparatus of the gem-stone processing system, in accordance
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[006] Fig.2 illustrates as an example of a gemstone alignment apparatus gem-stone processing system, in accordance with an implementation the present subject matter.
[007] Fig. 3 illustrates a method to reduce downtime of the gemstone pro-cessing system, in accordance with an implementation the present subject matter. 5
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[008] Conventionally, a rough gemstone may be processed on a cutting ma-chine, such as computerized numeric controller (CNC) based machine to obtain a pro-cessed gemstone. Generally, the CNC may include a controller that may provide com-10 mands to operate a laser, the cutting platform and other machining components that performs the cutting operation. Further, the cutting machine may cut the rough gem-stone based on a shape and size of the finished gemstone to be formed from the rough gemstone. Generally, the gemstone may be positioned on a cutting platform of the cut-ting machine and the controller may energize the laser to direct a laser beam to cut the 15 rough gemstone. The enhanced downtime of machine is less economical which may be resolved by employing present subject matter.
[009] Prior to the cutting rough gemstone, the rough gemstone may be aligned with respect to a reference on the cutting platform to ensure that there no in defects in the cutting of the rough gemstone, that otherwise may occur owing to any misalign-20 ment. Further, any defect in the positioning and alignment of the work piece may result in wastage of the rough gemstone. Generally, alignment of the rough gemstone may need accuracy and precision, and thus, is a time-consuming task. Further, alignment of the gemstone is performed manually. As a result, alignment of the gemstone may be labor intensive and time-consuming task. Generally, while the alignment of the rough 25 gemstone is performed, the cutting machine may remain idle. As a result, the process
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of alignment of the conventional technique may reduce a throughput of the cutting ma-chine. Moreover, the cutting machine idle may still consume power thereby increasing the power wastage.
[0010] The present subject matter may describe a method to improve the pre-cision in the alignment of the rough gemstone. Further, the present technique reduces 5 the machine downtime and also facilitates accurate alignment of the rough gemstone. The methods and the systems of the present subject matter enables automatic alignment of the gemstone.
[0011] According to an aspect of the present subject matter a gemstone pro-cessing system comprising a reference platform, an alignment platform and a gemstone 10 holder is described. In one example, the reference platform may be shaped and dimen-sioned to a gemstone cutting apparatus of the gemstone processing system. Further, the reference platform may include a surface having a predefined profile thereon to allow mounting of the alignment platform on the reference platform. Further, the predefined profile may identical to a profile of the gemstone cutting apparatus. In one example, 15 the alignment platform may include a base that has a complementary profile for the predefined profile such that the alignment platform may attain a predefined orientation when mounted on the reference platform. In addition, the complementary profile may allow the alignment platform to attain the pre-defined orientation when the alignment platform is mounted on the gemstone cutting apparatus. Therefore, alignment of the 20 rough gemstone performed with respect to the reference platform when the rough gem-stone is mounted on the alignment platform will result in the same alignment with ref-erence to the gemstone cutting apparatus.
[0012] According to an example, the alignment of the rough gemstone may be performed for the gemstone cutting apparatus at the apparatus different from the gem-25 stone cutting apparatus, i.e., at the gemstone alignment apparatus. As a result, during the alignment of the rough gemstone, the gemstone cutting apparatus remains available to cut another rough gemstone. Moreover, the alignment platform may be used for mul-tiple gemstone processing apparatus because of the complementary profile. As a result,
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the present subject matter reduces the downtime of gemstone cutting apparatus and increases the throughput of the gemstone processing apparatus. The methods and sys-tem employed in present subject matter may elevate the problem associated with the conventional gemstone processing system. The present subject matter automatically aligns the gemstone in accurate position, may be automated electronically, or like. 5 Moreover, the alignment platform of the present subject matter may lead to production efficiency as the downtime is reduced and utility time of machine is increased.
[0013] These and other advantages of the present subject matter would be de-scribed in greater detail in conjunction with the following figures. While aspects of an oil separator unit can be implemented in any number of different configurations, the 10 embodiments are described in the context of the following device(s) and method(s).
[0014] Fig. 1A illustrates a gemstone processing system 100 which may pro-cess rough gemstone 106 into a processed gemstone. The gemstone processing system 100 embodiment may include gemstone alignment apparatus 200 and a gemstone cut-ting apparatus 111. According to an aspect, the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 can 15 align a rough gemstone while the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 is in operation, i.e., without requiring any downtime of the gemstone cutting apparatus 111. The gemstone alignment apparatus 200 can be used for aligning the rough gemstone to be processed in a manner that the alignment so done can directly be used on the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 without having to separately align the gemstone on the gemstone cutting 20 apparatus. According to an embodiment, the gemstone alignment apparatus 200, or at least a component thereof, can be shaped and dimensioned in accordance with the gem-stone cutting apparatus 111. In said embodiment, the reference platform 205 can in-clude a profile (not shown) and the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 comprises a profile (not shown) identical to that of the reference platform 205. These identical profiles in 25 one example, allow the alignment done on the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 to be used directly on the gemstone cutting apparatus 111, as will be explained later.
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[0015] Fig 1B illustrates a gemstone cutting apparatus 111 of the gemstone processing system 100. a laser source 101, a first beam orientation device 103, a focus-ing device 105, a gemstone holder 107, an image capturing device 108, Second beam orientation device 109, a controller 110, a base 114, and an alignment platform 112. The alignment platform 112 can be supported in the base 114. 5
[0016] As mentioned above, the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 may include a predefined profile (which is identical to the profile in the gemstone alignment appa-ratus 200) to mount the alignment platform 112. Further, the alignment platform 112 may include a complementary profile at a base of the alignment platform 112. For in-stance, an upper surface of the base 114 of the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 may 10 have the predefined profile to allow the base of the alignment platform 112 to sit thereon such that the predefined profile mates with the complementary profile. The alignment platform 112 may allow the gemstone holder 107 to be mounted thereon. Further, the gemstone holder 107 may be mounted in such a way that the rough gem-stone 106 is aligned with a reference, such as a reference axis of the gemstone cutting 15 apparatus 111. As will be explained later, the reference can be obtained from the gem-stone alignment apparatus 200 and used for directly aligning the gemstone 106 on the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 for machining the rough gemstone 106 without any downtime, for example, due to the requirement of the separately aligning the gemstone 106 on the gemstone cutting apparatus 111. With the aspects of the present subject 20 matter, such a requirement is circumvented.
[0017] According to an aspect, the laser source 101 may produce a parallel laser beam 102 to process the rough gemstone 106. Further, the laser beam 102 may directed towards the focusing device 105 by the first beam orientation device 103. In one ex-ample, the first beam orientation device 103 can be a dichroic mirror, a glass coated 25 with a reflective layer or like. For instance, the first beam orientation device 103 may reorder the orientation of parallel laser beam 102 from horizontal to vertical and vice-versa. Further, the focusing device 105 may focus a parallel beam of laser incident on
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the surface of device to some focal point below the focusing device 105. In one exam-ple, the focusing device 105 can be a lens. As mentioned before, the gemstone holder 107 may be mounted over the alignment platform 112 which lies in an apparatus of present subject matter.
[0018] According to the illustrated implementation, the second beam orienta-5 tion device 109 receives a light beam 104, reflected by the rough gemstone 106, after passing through first beam orientation device 103. The second beam orientation device 109 receives waves and reflects the light beam 104 towards the image capturing device 108. Further, the image capturing device 108 may receive the directed light beam 104 and may utilize the same to generate images that may be observed by the operator to 10 monitor the processing of the rough gemstone 106. In an example implementation, im-age capturing device 108 may include cameras, optics, and image processing device to keep monitoring the processing. Further, the second beam orientation device 109 and the image capturing device 108 enables the operator to observe the rough gemstone 106 while the rough gemstone 106 mounted over a gemstone holder 107 may be pro-15 cessed by laser beam 102.
[0019] According to the illustrated aspect, a controller 110 which may be im-plemented as microprocessor, microcomputer, logic circuitries or any other like device which may manipulate signals received and generate control commands for other ele-ments in a system. The controller is coupled with an image capturing device 108, gem-20 stone cutting apparatus 111 and to the laser source 101. The controller 110 generates control signals to give command to the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 which may in turn controls the alignment platform 112 and the gemstone holder 107. Amongst other things, the controller 110, in one example, may obtain the reference from the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 and use it to automatically align the rough gemstone 106, for 25 example, mounted in the gemstone holder 107, in the gemstone cutting apparatus 111. For instance, the controller 110 can align the gemstone holder 107 in the gemstone cutting apparatus 111.
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[0020] Fig. 2 illustrates the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 for gemstone alignment for aligning the rough gemstone 106 and obtaining a reference which, as explained above, can be used by the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 for directly align-ing the rough gemstone 106, in accordance with an implementation the present subject matter. In one example, the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 may include a reference 5 platform 205 having a central axis 203 that may be similar to the reference axis of the gemstone cutting apparatus 111. In one example, the reference platform 205 may be structurally similar to gemstone cutting apparatus 111 of gemstone processing system 100 (as discussed with respect to fig.1). Furthermore, the alignment platform 112 may include a clasping mechanism 204 to hold the gemstone holder 107 thereon. In one 10 example, the clasping mechanism 204 being used for holding gemstone in proper po-sition may be, but not limited to, a magnetic holder, a vacuum holder, a mechanical clamp, or the like. As mentioned before, the rough gemstone 106 (as shown in fig.1) may be positioned on the gemstone holder 107 (shown in fig.1) which may be mounted on an clasping mechanism 204. Further, the rough gemstone 106 may have a gemstone 15 axis 202 indicting a center of the rough gemstone 106, in an example implementation of the present subject matter.
[0021] The gemstone alignment apparatus 200 may include other components, such as an imaging device to allow the operator to observe the rough gemstone 106 during the alignment process. In addition, the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 may 20 include actuators to move the gemstone holder 107 on the top of the alignment platform 112 to align the rough gemstone 106.
[0022] In order to align the rough gemstone 106, the gemstone holder 107 and the rough gemstone 106 may be placed on the alignment platform 112 and may be secured on top of the alignment platform 112. Once placed, the alignment platform 112 25 may be mounted on the reference platform 205 such that the predefined profile of the reference platform 205 and the complementary profile of the alignment platform 112 orients the alignment platform 112 in the predefined orientation. Once the alignment platform 112 is oriented, the rough gemstone 106 may be aligned. In an implementation
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where the alignment is performed manually, the operator may observe the rough gem-stone 106 and determine an offset between a gemstone axis 202 and the central axis 203. Once the offset is determined, the operator may operate the actuator to shift the gemstone holder 107 in order to reduce the offset. In one example, the actuator may move the gemstone holder 107 along the top of the alignment platform 112 until the 5 gemstone axis 202 and the central axis 203 coincide. Once both the axes coincide, the rough gemstone 106 may be aligned with the central axis 203. In another implementa-tion, the rough gemstone 106 is aligned without operator’s intervention, for example by a controller of the gemstone alignment apparatus 200. A technique of performing such may alignment is described in an Indian application no. 201821009612, incorpo-10 rated herein as reference. Further, once both the gemstone axis 202 and central axis 203 coincides, a reference indicative of the alignment can be obtained. For example, a reference mark which indicates the aligned position of the alignment platform 112 in the reference platform 205 can be marked on the alignment platform 112. Further, the reference can be directly used and the alignment platform 112 may be directly aligned 15 on the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 of gemstone processing system 100 for further processing of rough gemstone 106. In one example, the controller 110 of the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 can use the reference to automatically align the alignment plat-form 112 and, hence, the gemstone 106 on the gemstone cutting apparatus 111. The use the reference for automatically aligning the gemstone 106 on the gemstone cutting 20 apparatus 111 can be performed in any manner by a person skilled in the art. Further, since the rough gemstone 106 is already aligned, separate alignment may not be needed on the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 as shown in Fig. 1.
[0023] In operation of the gemstone processing system 100, the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 can be used for aligning the rough gemstone 106. The refer-25 ence platform 205 of the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 can receive the alignment platform 112 having mounted thereon the rough gemstone 106. The gemstone align-ment apparatus 200 can align the rough gemstone 106 in the alignment platform 112 and the achieved alignment of the rough gemstone 106 can be indicated by a reference
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which can be further used for directly and also automatically aligning the rough gem-stone 106. In turn, the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 can machine the rough gemstone 106. As mentioned previously, the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 can include the alignment platform 112 which is detachable and can mount the rough gemstone 106, for example, mounted in the gemstone holder 107. Once the alignment has been done 5 at the gemstone alignment apparatus 200 and the reference obtained, the alignment platform 112 can be directly positioned in the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 based on the reference, which also aligns the rough gemstone 106, and hence, the rough gem-stone 106 can be machined.
[0024] As mentioned above, the reference platform 205 is shaped and dimen-10 sioned in accordance with the gemstone cutting apparatus 111, such as the base 114 of the gemstone cutting apparatus 111. In one embodiment, the reference platform 205 can include a profile to receive the alignment platform 112. Further, the gemstone cut-ting apparatus 111, for instance, the base 114 thereof, can have a profile identical to the profile of the reference platform 205. Accordingly, in the manner above, the posi-15 tion of the alignment platform 112 in the profile of the reference platform 205, when aligned, is used as the reference for aligning the alignment platform 112 in the gem-stone cutting apparatus 111.
[0001] Fig. 3 illustrates a method 300 for reducing downtime of the gemstone processing system 100, for instance, of the gemstone cutting apparatus 111, in 20 accordance with the aspects of the present invention. The order in which the method 300 is described is not intended to be construed as a limitation, and any number of the described method blocks can be combined in any appropriate order to carry out the method 300, or an alternative method. Additionally, individual blocks may be deleted from the method 300 without departing from the substance of the subject matter 25 described herein. The method 300 may be performed by a gemstone processing system, such as the gemstone processing system 100.
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[0025] At block 302, alignment of a rough gemstone 106 is performed on gem-stone alignment apparatus 200 of the gemstone processing system 100. The alignment of the rough gemstone 106 that is achieved is indicated by a reference which is obtained from the gemstone alignment apparatus 200. Further, the alignment is performed while a cutting operation of a gemstone cutting apparatus 111 of the gemstone processing 5 system 100 is in progress.
[0026] At block 304, the rough gemstone 106 is aligned in the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 using the reference for cutting the rough gemstone 106. The aligning involves locating the rough gemstone 106 in an aligned position in the gemstone cutting apparatus 111 using the reference. 10
[0027] At block 306, the located rough gemstone 106 is machined in the gem-stone cutting apparatus 111.
[0028] Various modifications of the disclosed embodiments, as well as alter-nate embodiments of the subject matter, will become apparent to persons skilled in the art upon reference to the description of the subject matter. It is therefore contemplated 15 that such modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the present subject matter as defined.
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I/We Claim:
1. A gemstone processing system (100) comprising:
a gemstone cutting apparatus (111) to machine a rough gemstone (106), the gemstone cutting apparatus (111) comprising an alignment platform (112) 5 to mount the rough gemstone (106), wherein the alignment platform (112) is detachable; and
gemstone alignment apparatus (200) for aligning the rough gemstone (106), the gemstone alignment apparatus (200) comprising a reference platform (205) to receive the alignment platform (112) having mounted thereon the 10 rough gemstone (106), wherein the gemstone alignment apparatus (200) is to align the rough gemstone (106) in the alignment platform (112), the achieved alignment of the rough gemstone (106) being indicated by a reference;
wherein the alignment platform (112) is positioned in the gemstone cutting apparatus (111) based on the reference for aligning the rough gemstone 15 (106) for machining.
2. The gemstone processing system (100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the ref-erence platform (205) is shaped and dimensioned in accordance with the gem-stone cutting apparatus (111). 20
3. The gemstone processing system (100) as claimed in claim 2, wherein the ref-erence platform (205) comprises a profile to receive the alignment platform (205) and the gemstone cutting apparatus (111) comprises a profile identical to the profile of the reference platform (205), wherein a position of the alignment 25 platform (112) in the profile of the reference platform (205), when aligned, is the reference for aligning the alignment platform (112) in the gemstone cutting apparatus (111).
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4. A method (300) to reduce downtime of a gemstone processing system (100), the method comprising:
performing alignment of a rough gemstone (106) on gemstone alignment apparatus (200) of the gemstone processing system (100), the achieved alignment of the rough gemstone (106) being indicated by a reference, 5 wherein the alignment is performed while a cutting operation of a gemstone cutting apparatus (111) of the gemstone processing system (100) is in progress;
aligning the rough gemstone (106) in the gemstone cutting apparatus (111) for cutting the rough gemstone (106) using the reference, wherein the aligning comprises locating the rough gemstone (106) in an aligned position in 10 the gemstone cutting apparatus (111); and
machining the located rough gemstone (106).