I absolutely agree with you Lisa ! I don’t know where Dave wants to go with his idea, but I’d love to continue with an online brainstorming to move it forward.
If I’m not mistaken, the initial assumption was to use the color palette to identifies species of pearls, the current direction is that it could be used to differentiate 1) natural vs cultured pearls; 2) treated vs non-treated cultured pearls….. and, as Dave said, there might be other usages to be discovered along the way…
The concept of “reference database” is sticking with me. Here is what come to my mind:
1 – From what I understand, the GIA is using their database of gems (reference catalog) from all over the world to compare and identify a gem ‘s origin (spectroscopic data) (here a fascinating long read – 82 pages – of a field expedition to get sample from a new source of ruby). Btw, an interesting chapter on a calibrated photo shoot with a light box on page 17.
http://www.giathai.net/pdf/GIA_Ruby_Montepuez_Mozambique.pdf)
2 - There was a big innovation in the mammogram industry in the US a few year ago. Basically, I think that all mammograms became digital, and were compiled in a national database. So your results were automatically compared to thousands (now millions) of other mammograms. If enough “markers” were found matching a sample of markers that ended up being malignant tumors, it raised a flag. And then there was another procedure (ultra sound) to get more accurate measurements. From what I recall, this new process – although less precise than previous one - increased the early detection of malignant tumors, and decreased overall cost. It’s a strange parallel with the world of pearls, but sometimes innovation come from looking at other “industry” best practices…
Now I need to get back to work
but I “needed” to get this out of my mind in writing
Best Regards
Sophie