TW201944056A - Method for improving gem identification efficiency - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for improving gem identification efficiency includes following steps: observing, screening and identifying the appearance of a sapphire or ruby by visual contact of a gem identifier; instrumental testing, selecting a refractometer and a microscope through a six sigma and chart analyzing method to identify the properties and species of the sapphire or rube; statistics reading, generating an identification statistics of the sapphire or rube through the refractometer and microscope, and conducting an analysis and reading of a gem accuracy according to the identification statistics by the gen identifier, wherein the average gem accuracy is above 85%; and confirming the gem identity, identifying the species of the sapphire or ruby according to the gem accuracy by the gem identifier. Therefore, simple instruments are applied to accurately and efficiently identify the identity and species of gems.

Description

Methods to improve the efficiency of gem identification

The invention is a method for identifying gemstones, especially a method for accurately identifying gemstones by using a refractometer and a microscope to improve the efficiency of gemstone identification.

Gem identification is a very professional scientific field. Appraisers not only need to have jewelry-related professional knowledge, but also need rich practical operation experience. In the process of gem identification, in addition to rich experience and professional knowledge, the most important factor lies in gem identification equipment. Selection and operation process.

The traditional gem identification procedures are mainly divided into general observation, instrument detection, data interpretation and identification. Among them, in the general observation step, the color and appearance of the gemstones are mainly determined by visual inspection for preliminary screening. Then, the instrument detection step is to use a plurality of photoelectric instruments to detect the gemstones that are initially screened, and traditionally used to identify the gemstones. The optoelectronic instruments include refractometers, polarizers, beam splitters, dichroic mirrors, thermal instruments, 10x magnifiers, microscopes, and color filters to test the characteristics of gems. The data interpretation step is based on the data detected by the optoelectronic instruments. And analyze the type of gemstone; determine the identity step, the gemological expert judges the judgment result of the data interpretation step, and combines his own professional knowledge and practical experience to finally confirm the gemstone identity.

However, the traditional gem identification procedure requires a high cost to purchase a plurality of expensive optoelectronic instruments in the instrument detection step, and when a gemstone passes each optoelectronic instrument inspection, it takes a lot of time.

In addition, some optoelectronic instruments have environmental use restrictions, so if you want to identify gems in other countries or areas where gems are mined, you cannot immediately have all of the optoelectronic instruments, which will affect the judgment results of gems.

In view of this, how to design a simplified gemstone identification process and use fewer types of photoelectric instrument combinations for detection can also achieve the effect of accurately identifying the identity of the gemstone, which needs to be solved by the relevant industry.

In order to solve the problem of using a variety of instruments to identify gemstones, the present invention provides a method for improving the efficiency of gemstone identification. The method uses six standard deviation methods to screen out refractometers and microscopes, and the combination of refractometers and microscopes can effectively and accurately identify The type and identity of the gem.

An embodiment of the present invention provides a method for improving the efficiency of gem identification, which includes the following steps in sequence: general observation: a gem appraiser preliminarily screens and judges the appearance of a gem, and the gem is selected from the group consisting of sapphire or ruby One type: instrument detection: a refractometer and a microscope are obtained after screening by sixteen standard deviation methods and charts. It is found in the six standard deviation method that the refractometer can analyze gemstones and has multiple gemstone characteristics, and has a high refractive index for gemstones. The degree of identification and analysis capabilities, while the microscope is a magnification analysis of the gemstone content, through the combination of refractometer and microscope to identify and analyze the characteristics and types of gemstones; data interpretation: refractometer and microscope corresponding to the gemstone to generate identification data, Gem appraiser analyzes and interprets the accuracy of a gemstone based on the appraisal data, and the average accuracy rate of the gemstone is above 85%; and determining the identity: the gemologist appraise the type of gemstone based on the accuracy rate of the gemstone.

In this way, the present invention obtains a combination of refractometer and microscope through experimental screening of six standard deviations. The combination of refractometer and microscope can accurately and quickly identify and analyze the effect of ruby and sapphire, and it also has a significant reduction in purchase. Cost and convenience.

In order to facilitate the description of the central idea of the present invention in the above-mentioned summary of content, specific embodiments are described below. Various objects in the embodiments are drawn in proportions suitable for enumeration, rather than proportions of actual elements, and are described in advance.

Please refer to FIG. 1, the present invention provides a method for improving gem identification efficiency, which includes the following steps in order:

General observation S1: A gemologist appraises the appearance of a gemstone visually through practical experience and professional knowledge. During the actual preliminary judgment, the gemologist will rotate the gemstone, observe and judge the polychromaticity of the gemstone, and use the hand And practical experience to initially estimate the weight range of the gemstone, and then measure the hardness, color brightness and transparency of the gemstone with a simple detection instrument. In the embodiment of the present invention, the gemstone is selected from one of sapphire or ruby.

"Hardness": The hardness of a gemstone represents the resistance to damage by external forces (scratches, scratches, abrasions). Among them, a gemstone with a high hardness will rub a gemstone with a lower hardness. The hardness of a gemstone determines its durability. The higher the hardness of a gemstone, the less likely it is to be damaged in daily life.

"Color brightness": The gem color brightness is artificially divided into three levels of bright, medium and dark. The color and brightness of a gemstone are estimated by standard identification procedures, which are as follows:

1. Clean the surface of the gem with a gem wipe.

2. Place the gemstone in the gray trough, and then place the appraisal lamp holder or other light source, maintain an observation distance of 12 to 18 inches from the gemstone, and evaluate the gemstone's color and brightness by observing from different angles.

The evaluation criteria for color brightness include the following:

"Bright color": The bright areas of the gem are evenly distributed, and there are no scattered dark areas.

"Medium": There are some scattered dark areas in the appearance of the gem.

"Dark": Only a few areas of the gemstone are bright, and the dark area sometimes extends from the desktop to the surrounding crown facets, and the waist facets may be dark and scattered.

"Transparency": The transparency of the actual identification of unknown gemstones is identified by a magnifying glass and a focusing pen-shaped torch, and the gemstone identification table is compared to determine whether the classified gemstone is transparent or opaque.

Instrument detection S2: A sixteen standard deviation method and a graph analysis screen were used to obtain a refractometer and a microscope, and the combination of the refractometer and the microscope was used to identify and analyze the characteristics and types of gemstones.

"Six Sigma": Six standard deviation is a quality improvement method and process widely used in the industry. The present invention uses six standard deviation to improve the gem identification instrument program and the number of machines. The main process of six standard deviations is the five steps of DMAIC, which are respectively expressed as: definition ( D efine), measurement ( M easure), analysis ( A nalyze), improvement ( I mprove), control ( C ontrol).

Please refer to FIG. 2 for reference. When the standard deviation is actually calculated in the present invention, the process is assumed to be shifted to the left by 1.5 σ (the principle of shifting to the right is the same). Among them, each symbol in the X-axis coordinate represents: μ = Mean number, σ = standard deviation, m = specification center, LSL = lower limit of product specifications, USL = upper limit of product specifications, products exceeding specifications are defective (or non-conforming products), and the standard deviation of the present invention and its corresponding yield rate The formula is set to p _k = Φ ( k -1.5), (Φ ( k -1.5) represents the standard normal probability). By using the above formula, corresponding probability values of one standard deviation to six standard deviations are calculated.

For example, each standard deviation represents the quality level of a process or product, and corresponds to the yield (or pass rate) of a process or product. For example: Six standard deviations (6 σ ) quality level represents a certain process or product yield of 99.99966%, that is, only 3.4 times (or) defects or defective products per 1 million times (or) (ie defective rate = 100% -99.99966% = 0.00034%).

Definition: The definition steps of the present invention are used to explore the problems that need to be improved by the traditional gem identification method. Gem appraisers use a variety of gem appraisal instruments to analyze gems according to the tradition, and further explore the shortcomings that they will face. For example, 1. Appraisal and analysis through a variety of gem appraisal instruments will relatively cost a lot of time and a long analysis time; Gem identification instruments are too cumbersome to carry. Therefore, the gem appraiser responded to the above-mentioned problems by further understanding the characteristics and analysis of various gem appraisal instruments. After careful discovery, some gem appraisal instruments provided repetitive problems in the analysis of gem appraisals.

Moreover, after investigation, it is found that most gemstone appraisers believe that without considering the purchase cost of gemstone appraisal instruments and the limitation of appraisal time, the more gemstone appraisal instruments used, the better the accuracy of gem identification, but the excessive use Instruments can also pose a risk of misjudgment, so the findings have the same insights as the issues discussed above.

In addition, each gemstone appraiser believes that the type and quantity of gemstone appraisal instruments need to be improved and streamlined in consideration of the purchase cost and appraisal time of the gemstone appraisal instruments.

Measurement: The measurement step of the present invention is used to calculate the loss caused by the inefficient identification of gemstone identification. "Identification inefficiency" means a concept similar to opportunity cost. For example, if one or two types of gem identification instruments can be used to confirm the identity of a gemstone, the data provided by more types of instruments are used for interpretation, which is not only a waste of time. It will also increase the cost of the appraisal (instrument cost and inconvenience cost). For gem appraisers with insufficient appraisal experience, repeated reading data may even easily lead to misjudgment, which will adversely affect the determination of the correct identity of the gemstone. "Loss.

In the present invention, the "loss of inefficient identification" refers to the difference between the types of identification instruments used in the traditional gem identification process and the types of identification instruments used in the simplified process under the assumption of the same accuracy of identification.

Among them, the calculation formula for the loss of identification inefficiency is as follows TL = , TL: represents the total loss of all of the identifying inefficiencies caused, L _i: the i-th representative of the loss of the instrument to identify inefficiencies caused, N: total number of representatives of all Gemological inefficient.

Analysis: The analysis steps of the present invention are further analyzed and researched on a variety of traditional gem identification instruments. The present invention first analyzes the factors of the inefficiency of the identification and integrates the characteristic factor maps. After the gem appraiser has discussed, the personnel (Men), gem appraisal instrument (Machine), time (Time) and other aspects will affect the promotion appraisal. no efficiency.

It is further explained that the level of personnel (Men) contains the expertise of gem appraisers, operating instrument skills, instrument operation experience, and data provided by the interpretation instrument, which will affect gem interpretation.

The level of the gemstone appraisal instrument (Machine) includes whether the correct combination of instrument types, instrument damage, and outdated machinery have led to errors in gemstone appraisal.

The level of Time includes the types of instruments used, the training time, and the analysis and interpretation data, which may incur the cost of gems.

Other levels may include new synthetic methods, new processing methods, new mining areas and new minerals that may cause inefficient gem identification.

According to the above-mentioned characteristic factor map, gemological appraisers believe that the correct combination of instrument types can be used to reduce the inefficiencies of gemological identification. It is necessary to accurately screen the combination of various gemological identification instruments while maintaining the original identification accuracy.

Therefore, gem appraisers will discuss various gem appraisal instruments, and use Quality Function Deployment matrix charts to unify the characteristics and functions of gems identified and analyzed by various gem appraisal instruments, and further use professional knowledge and practical experience Each gemstone appraisal instrument is evaluated with an appraisal score.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the gemstone identification instrument includes a refractometer, a polarizer, a beam splitter, a dichroic mirror, a thermal conductivity meter, a 10x magnifying glass, a microscope, a color filter, and a specific gravity kit, and performs a comparative analysis on the characteristics and functions of the gemstone as follows As shown in the table. Table 1. Statistics of the correlation between various gem identification instruments and their corresponding functions

Please refer to Table 1. The refractometer can analyze a plurality of gemstone characteristics of the gemstone, and the gemstone characteristics analyzed by the refractometer include refractive index, birefringence difference, positive and negative optical properties, uniaxial and birefringent, among which Because the refractometer has a high degree of identification and analysis ability for the refractive index of the gemstone, the identification score of the refractometer corresponding to the refractive index is 9 points, and the identification score of the refractometer corresponding to the refractive index is higher than the birefringence difference, the optical sign, Single and biaxial and single birefringence; while the spectroscope has a significantly higher ability to identify and analyze the absorption spectrum of the gemstone, a 10x magnifying glass and microscope serve as magnification analysis, so the 10x magnifying glass and microscope are targeted at the content of the gemstone. The object has a significantly higher identification and analysis ability, and the total identification score added by the refractometer is relatively higher than other gemstone identification instruments.

Moreover, it is known from the above table that the test data of gemstone characteristics provided by some instruments are repetitive, and they are highly replaceable with each other, without the need for repeated verification. For example: if the refractive index (X1) and birefringence difference (X2) are read by the refractometer (M1), it is not necessary to judge the single and birefringence (X5) in the polarizer (M2). That is, when the refractometer (M1) is used to determine the single or birefringence of the gemstone, the polarizer (M2) is no longer needed to determine the single or birefringence of the gemstone, which can simplify the type of gemological identification instrument. Based on this, this study uses a combination of refractometer, spectroscope, 10x magnifying glass, and microscope as two types of gem identification instruments as a priority consideration for streamlining gem identification procedures.

After an ardent analysis:

(1) For experienced gemstone appraisers, the refractive index of a gemstone is known by the use of a refractometer, and the absorption spectrum of a gemstone can be observed by a spectroscope. Therefore, the use of a refractometer or a spectroscope can only determine the gemstone. However, the identity of the gemstone cannot be judged as a natural gemstone or synthetic gemstone, so the refractometer and the spectroscope cannot be used as a gemstone identification combination.

(2) The magnification function of a 10-times magnifying glass or microscope is mainly used to magnify and observe the composition of the gemstone, as a judgement whether the gemstone is a natural gemstone or a synthetic gemstone. In addition, since the 10x magnifying glass and microscope are instruments with homogeneous functions, personal preference and convenience are considered. Unless a small number of contents must be observed with a high power, only one of them needs to be selected in practice. . Therefore, a microscope and a 10x magnifier cannot be used as a gemstone identification combination.

(3) The main function of the spectroscope is to observe the absorption spectrum of the gemstone. Due to the existence of certain differences in the gemstone, the diagnostic absorption spectrum will be incompletely displayed, which will easily cause errors during identification and analysis. Therefore, a microscope and a spectroscope or a 10x magnifier and a spectroscope cannot be used as a gemstone identification combination.

Based on the above analysis results, it is further reduced to a combination of refractometer and microscope or refractometer and 10x magnifying glass.

Improvement: Further verify the combination of refractometer and microscope or refractometer and 10x magnifying glass two sets of instruments, and perform expert experiments with traditional gem identification instruments to compare the differences in the identification results between each other.

Control: In order to continuously achieve the purpose of “improving the efficiency of gem identification” in the present invention, a Standard Operation Process (SOP) is formulated to serve as a reference for the industry to control the quality (or accuracy) and efficiency of gem identification.

Data interpretation S3: The refractometer and microscope generate an identification data corresponding to the gemstone. The gemological appraiser analyzes and interprets a gemstone accuracy rate based on the identification data, and the gemstone accuracy rate of the present invention is on average 85% or more. Among them, the present invention uses expert experiments Method to analyze the accuracy of gems.

The steps of the expert experiment method are as follows:

(1) Eight gemstone appraisers engaged in jewelry teaching and appraisal conducted identification experiments and confirmed the identity of the gemstones. However, because the gemstones are expensive and difficult to collect, the gemstones identified by the present invention are red and blue , There are 10 each.

(2) Eight gemstone appraisers performed two experiments on each group of gemstones, one of which was a combination of two gemstone appraisal instruments, M1 (refractometer) and M7 (microscope), and the other was performed using a variety of traditional gemstone appraisal instruments. Identification and analysis of each group of gemstones, so each group of gemstones obtained a total of 16 experimental data.

(3) In order to obtain the correctness of the experiment, the above two kinds of experiments need to be spaced about 1.5 months apart, the purpose of which is to reduce the memory of gemstone appraisers for each group of gemstones, thereby reducing experimental errors.

The accuracy of the experimental results is shown in the following table. Table 2. Accuracy of the type of instrument used

The results are shown in Table 2. Using a combination of a refractometer and a microscope to identify and analyze gemstones, the average accuracy of rubies is 88%, while the average accuracy of sapphires is 98%, and the total accuracy of the two groups of gems is 93% (= 88% + 98%); In contrast, the analysis results of traditional multiple gem identification instruments found that the average accuracy of rubies is 88.57%, and the average accuracy of sapphires is 98.57%, and the total accuracy is 93.57 % (= 88.57% + 98.57%). As a result, the accuracy of gemstones analyzed by the two differs by 0.57%.

Determine the identity S4: The gem appraiser clearly judges the type of gemstone based on the accuracy rate of the gemstone, and according to the non-maternal statistical test results, there is no significant difference in the accuracy of the two identification methods or processes (p> 0.05). Therefore, the experimental data proves that ruby and sapphire only need to be identified with a refractometer and a microscope, and the accuracy of the gemstone can reach 85% on average; by this, the combination of the refractometer and the microscope can be accurately identified through the present invention. Ruby and sapphire effect.

In summary, the present invention has the following advantages:

1. The present invention obtains a combination of a refractometer and a microscope through an experimental screening of six standard deviations. The combination of the refractometer and a microscope can accurately and quickly identify and analyze the effects of rubies and sapphires.

2. The present invention uses a refractometer and a microscope to identify gemstones, which can greatly reduce the cost of purchase and has the effect of being convenient to carry. Furthermore, the use of simplified gemstone identification instruments can reduce the inefficiency of gemstone identification, thereby improving the accuracy of gem identification.

Many modifications and changes for those skilled in the art obviously do not depart from the scope and spirit of the present invention. The description and examples are merely illustrative, and the true scope and spirit of the present invention will be pointed out in the following patent application scope.

S1‧‧‧General observation

S2‧‧‧ Instrument Inspection

S3‧‧‧Data Interpretation

S4‧‧‧ determine identity

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of the steps of the present invention. Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the standard deviation of the present invention.

Claims (3)

A method for improving the efficiency of gem identification, which includes the following steps in sequence: General observation: a gem appraiser preliminarily screens and judges the appearance of a gem, and the gem is selected from one of sapphire or ruby; instrument inspection: A six-standard deviation method and a chart analysis screen obtained a refractometer and a microscope. In the six-standard deviation method, it was found that the refractometer can analyze the gemstone and analyze a plurality of gemstone characteristics, and has a high degree of identification for the refractive index of the gemstone. Analysis capabilities, and the microscope is used to magnify the content of the gemstone to identify and analyze the characteristics and types of the gemstone through the combination of the refractometer and the microscope; data interpretation: the refractometer and the microscope correspond to the gemstone Generate appraisal data, the gem appraiser analyzes and interprets a gem's accuracy rate based on the appraisal data, and the gem's accuracy rate is above 85% on average; and determine the identity: the gem appraiser clearly judges the gem according to the gem's accuracy rate kind. The method for improving the identification efficiency of gemstones as described in claim 1, wherein, in the instrument detection step, the six standard deviation method separately evaluates the refractometer to an identification score corresponding to the characteristics of the gemstones, and the gemstones The characteristics include refractive index, birefringence difference, positive and negative optical properties, single biaxiality and single birefringence, and the identification score corresponding to the refractive index of the refractometer is higher than birefringence difference, optical positive and negative, single biaxiality And single birefringence. The method for improving gem identification efficiency as described in claim 1, wherein in the data interpretation step, when the gem is a ruby, the gem is identified and analyzed by a combination of the refractometer and the microscope, and the gem is obtained The average accuracy of the gem is 88%. When the gem is a sapphire, the gem is identified and analyzed by the combination of the refractometer and the microscope, and the average accuracy of the gem is 98%.