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DiamCalc : Guide
Complete Guide
  1. Estimating the mass of the stone and calculating cut parameters
  2. Support for different cuts and a large set of parameters
  3. Support of external cut designs and diamond 3D-models- GemCad, AutoCAD and Sarin files import (registered version only)
  4. Working with different types of gemstones
  5. Finding unknown parameters (mounted diamonds, estimating proportions of diamonds before they are cut) and parameter fixing
  6. Selecting measurement units and parameters to show
  7. Appraising cut quality (GIA, HRD, AGA, Russian TU systems) and estimating the price of the diamond
  8. Different visual presentations of diamond, fine-tuning images to produce realistic view of a diamond
  9. Detailed description of DiamCalc appraisers
  10. Appraiser file format
  11. OctBrill.txt file format
  12. Price list file format

Appraiser file format

This document shows technical description of Appraise.txt file format

Appraise.txt file is located in the folder where DiamCalc is installed. This file defines criteria by which DiamCalc grades diamonds (i.e. defines quality of diamonds' parameters) depending on a selected grading system ("appraiser"). A technical description of Appraise.txt file format is given below.

To understand how the data can be modified to change grading criteria, see how to modify appraiser data.

For less technical information, see how DiamCalc grades diamonds for a common-language description of appraising process and for human-readable tables that corresponds to DiamCalc grading methods.

See appraising diamonds quality and pricing diamonds for relation between appraising diamonds and calculating their price, as it is done by DiamCalc, and for related links.

  1. General structure of Appraise.txt file
  2. Comments (";"), spaces and split lines
  3. Structure of appraiser data ("[Appraiser]" - "[End]" block)
  4. Structure of quality groups list ("[Quality]" - "[End]"block)
  5. Structure of translation ("Other]" - "[End]" block)
  6. Structure of cut parameters ("[Cut]" - "[End]" block)

1. General structure of Appraise.txt file

The structure of the file is defined by sections, each one begins with a keyword in brackets (e.g. "[Appraiser]", "[quality]", "[cut]", etc.) and ends with an "[end]" line. On the top level, the file consists of several "[Appraiser]" - "[end]" blocks, each for one appraiser. Inside those blocks, there are some other blocks ("[quality]" - "[end]", etc.). The blocks are indented by spaces to make their scope more understandable.

The general structure looks like the following:

; AGA appraiser

[Appraiser]
...
[quality]
...
[end]
[other]
...
[end]
[cut]
...
[end]

[end]

; GIA appraiser

[Appraiser]
...

[end]

...

; other appraisers

("..." means that some lines were skipped). First, select an appraiser which data you would like to examine or modify by browsing the file for appropriate "[Appraiser]" - "[end]" section. Then look at that part of file for specific appraiser data (see other sections of this manual for details).

2. Comments (";"), spaces and split lines

Each line that begins with ";" symbol (semicolon) is a comment. Such lines are ignored by the software, but they can provide valuable description of the data to a human who reads the file. You can safely remove any comments from the file, or add your own by putting text on a separate line and beginning it with ";".

The software ignores white space between lines and extra white space between words, e.g. if a sequence "1A 0" occurs anywhere in the file, it can be substituted by "1A 0" with no change in meaning. Tab symbols are ignored also.

The format allows to split long lines (splitting should not break words, i.e. it should occur at a white space only). When a line is split, the beginning is placed at a separate line and "\" symbol (backslash) is added at the end after a space. The end of line should be placed on the next line of file without any modifications.

It is recommended to keep existing formatting, as it was chosen to make the file more readable. For example, it is easy to find a pair "[end]" line for a "[cut]" line, as there are equal numbers of spaces before each of those lines.

3. Structure of appraiser data

[Appraiser] - [End] block

An "[Appraiser]" - "[end]" block holds the data of one appraiser. You can identify if some "[Appraiser]" tag corresponds to the grading system you need in one of two ways:

a) Looking for a comment just before the "[Appraiser]" tag. It can be, for instance, "; GIA" line for GIA grading system.

b) Looking for "Title: ..." line couple of lines below of the "[Appraiser]" tag. For instance, it is "Title: GIA" for GIA appraiser.

Besides "Title:", there can be other lines at the beginning of the appraiser data, like "Version: ..." and "Serial Number: ...". It is an internal file information, leave it as is.

Some blocks may follow in the appraiser description, such as "[quality]" - "[end]" block (it lists quality groups used by this appraiser), "[other]" - "[end]" block (it contains, for example, information on what "Thick" girdle is in numerical terms), and a "[cut]" - "[end]" block (may be several of them; each one defines quality groups for one or several cut types).

Content of each section is indented by spaces, so it is easy to find the beginning and the end of each section and see if one of them is inside another one.

4. Structure of quality groups list

[Quality] - [End] block

A "[quality]" - "[end]" block lists quality groups used by that appraiser, discounts for those groups, and maybe some additional information. Each quality group listed on a separate line inside the "[quality]" - "[end]" block. For example, let us look at list of HRD grades (it is located in HRD appraiser data):

[quality]

Excellent 0 "Very good" 0 Good 10 Fair 15

[end]

It means that there are four quality groups. Each line begins with the name for a quality group, the following number is the discount in percents. Note that if the name consists of two words or more, it should be surrounded by quotes ("Very good" in the example above).

Some additional information may follow the discount, for instance, as in AGA appraiser data:

2A 10 RGB 200 200 200

In this case, 2A is the name of the quality group, 10 means the discount for quality (in percents). The rest should be left as is (it defines the color by which this quality group will be displayed).

5. Structure of translation

[Other] - [End] block

An "[other]" - "[end]" block defines translation tables for parameters values, that is a relation between a parameter's numeric and verbal values (for example, a "Large" culet in AGA appraiser is defined as 0.22 to 0.4 millimeters wide).

There are typically several "long" lines inside "[other]" - "[end]" sections. (Remember: "\" (backslash) symbol at the end of a line means that the following line is a continuation of this one. So if you see several consecutive lines in the file that end with "\" except the last one, the software will treat those lines as a single one, ending backslashes are ignored. We can call such line a "long" one.)

The "long" lines in "[other]" - "[end]" blocks can begin with the following:

DefaultParameter: ... - currently not used, but leave such lines as is
StringValue: GirdleHeight_GIA (%) ... - defines values of girdle thickness
StringValue: Culet_mm (.) ... - lists values of culet size

"StringValue:..." strings have the following format: after a parameter's name, list of possible values along with two numerical values (minimum and maximum numerical values) follows. For example, the beginning of girdle thickness values list in AGA system looks like the following:

StringValue: GirdleHeight_GIA (%) \

"Ext. thin" 0. 0.4 \ "Very thin" 0.4 1.0 \ Thin 1.0 1.5 \

...

It should be read this way: the translation table describes girdle thickness (note that "_GIA" suffix in the parameter name does not mean that GIA parameter values are assumed, only that the girdle thickness is measured the way which is used in GIA system). "(%)" means that the value is measured in percents of diameter. Extremely thin ("Ext. thin") girdle is defined as having a width between 0 and 0.4 % of diameter, "Very thin" girdle is between 0.4 and 1.0 % of diameter, and Thin one is from 1.0 to 1.5 %. (Only a part of the list is cited, the complete list has also several other values).

6. Structure of cut parameters

[Cut] - [End] block

"[Cut]" - "[end]" blocks define what parameter range is allowed for different quality groups. There can be several "[cut]" - "[end]" blocks inside one "[Appraiser]" - "[end]" block. Each one is typically for one cut type, which can be determined by "Name: ..." line, e.g. "Name: Brilliant" or "Name: Pear", etc.

The following elements (lines) can be present in a "[cut]" - "[end]" block (they will be described in more details below):

"Name: ..." - sets the cut type (or types) which this section refers
"Quality: ..." - lists quality groups that are applicable for this cut type(s)
"Parameters: ..." - names all parameters that will be defined in "Mass:..." line
"Mass: ..." - defines the range of mass and then all quality groups for that range

Note that some of the elements may be "long" lines, i.e. several lines that all except the last are ended by "\" (backslash). The software treats such "long" lines as a single one.

"Quality"..." line may look like

"Quality: 2A 2B 3A 3B 4A 4B"

(The example is taken from AGA appraiser, data for Pear cut). Six values of quality will be used for appraising, they are delimited by spaces.

"Parameters:..." line can begin like "Parameters: UpAngle (°) DownHeight_GIA (%) GirdleHeight_mm (s) ..."

(the example is taken from GIA appraiser). It means that the diamond parameters will be listed in the following order: Crown angle in degrees, Pavilion depth in percents of diameter, Girdle thickness as one of values listed in translation table, etc. When the names of parameters does not seem clear, assume that "Up" prefix means the crown and "Down" refers to the pavilion. For example, "DownAngle" is a pavilion angle and "DownHeight_GIA" means pavilion depth measured according to GIA guidelines. Look at the units of measurement located in parenthesis next to the parameter name. "(%)" is percents of the diameter, "(mm)" is millimeters, "(.)" is no unit and "(s)" is a value taken from a translation table. Examples: "Table (%)" is a table diameter measured in percents of the girdle diameter, "Culet_mm (s)" is a culet type according to a translation table, "GirdleRatio (.)" is a ratio between maximum and minimum girdle diameters.

"Mass: ..." line structure can be seen with this example taken from the Russian TU appraiser for Marquise cut:

Mass: 0.00 0.49 \

30 35 39 42 1.50 3.00 55 65 1.7 2.4 10 25 \
30 36 39 42 0.70 3.00 55 65 1.6 2.6 10 25

As the software uses "\" symbol as a command to glue this line and a next one, all three lines above are combined into a single "long" line, so there is only one line for the software. However, the shipped version of Appraise.txt has the values formatted for better readability. Namely, the first line above ("Mass 0.00 0.49 \") means that the table below is valid for mass range from 0 to 0.49 carats only (remember, applicability of the table is restricted by the cut type also.

The cut type is specified by "Name: ..." line). Then the table follows which line refers to a quality value. Look at the "Quality: ..." line in the same "[cut]" - "[end]" block to understand which line is for which quality grade. In our case, the line "Quality: A B" means that the second line above (one beginning with "30 35 ...") is for A quality and the last one is for B quality. To understand data in the line, look at the "Parameters: ..." line in the same "[cut]" - "[end]" block. Each parameter will correspond to two data values (minimum and maximum one). In this case, the parameters are defined by "Parameters: UpAngle (°) DownAngle (°)...".

Given that information, the line "30 35 39 42..." translates to: "A quality group in Russian TU appraiser for Marquise cut corresponds to Crown angle (UpAngle) in the range from 30 to 35 degrees, to Pavilion angle (DownAngle) between 39 and 42 degrees, etc."

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