Post subject: GO Faceting Design Competition 2014 (!)
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 3:43 am
Moderator
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 10:06 pm Posts: 2267 Location: Chapel Hill, NC / Toronto, ON
**Please accept my apologies for the delay. Entries are now closed, and voting will be enabled for 15 days starting on Friday, Oct 24th.**
Welcome to the Gemology Online 2014 Faceting Design Competition! "Now with 17% less suck!™" This year has two new categories for submissions, with entirely different criteria for entry, so please be sure to read the rules carefully.
*I will be submitting designs for fun, but am removing myself from the competition, since that would be a massive conflict of interest.
The competition has two categories of design specifications; each category has different requirements for acceptable design. Within each category, there will be two finalists. Both categories will be scored exclusively according to an open poll, with more detail given below.
"Maximize":
This category is designed to force faceters to use or develop their cross-sectional 3D visualization skills. The goal of this category is to produce a design that gives the highest possible yield from shapes that gem rough can frequently be found in.
The entrant may choose one of the following shapes.
A perfect cube. (Think synthetics.)
A perfect octahedron. (Think spinel or fluorite. Also scheelite, diamond, and sphalerite.)
A perfect tabular hexagonal prism, with an H/W ratio of 0.5. (Think Montana sapphires.)
A perfect hexagonal prism, with an L/W ratio of at least 2. Consider the length to be the distance between hexagonal faces, and the width to be the distance between two opposite edges parallel to the C axis. (Think of a perfect crystal of beryl or a perfect hexagonal crystal of tourmaline, with L/W >= 2. You could send in a design oriented on the AB, or a design oriented on the C where you sawy the stone in half and do a matched pair. Either way.)
These designs should be written for a refractive index of a material that can commonly be found in the above shapes. This is a suggestion, not a hard-and-fast rule.
Designs must be reproducible entirely in a meetpoint manner.
There are no other restrictions on design.
Designs will be scored entirely according to an open poll. Further information about the poll is listed below. The theoretical percent yield of the design will not be used in the scoring process, but voters will be strongly encouraged to keep it in mind.
"Cutthroat":
This category time sensitive! This is a “restrictive” competition, meaning that as more designs are submitted, certain design features become off-limits for future entries.
When an entry is submitted, it must have at least one design feature that is still in the green, bolded list below, as of the time of submission.
When an entry is submitted, it may not contain any of the design features in the red, italicized list below, as of the time of submission.
When a design is submitted, the author MUST choose one of the design features from the green, bolded list present in his or her design, and designate it as “off-limits” in the e-mail submission. This places the feature in the red, italicized list. No further submissions may then use that design feature.
It is to your advantage to submit your entries for this category as early as possible, as to restrict the options of other entrants with regards to design features.
Designs submitted in this category must have less than or equal to 200 facets, including girdle facets.
Designs submitted in this category must have less than or equal to 36 tiers, including the table and girdle facets.
The number of facets and tiers will not be used for scoring in this category.
"Cutthroat" Available design features:
Apex crown
Checkerboard crown with square checkers
Checkerboard crown with triangle checkers
Checkerboard crown with rhombus/diamond/parallelogram checkers
Round outline
Oval outline with an L/W ratio below 1.25
Oval outline with an L/W ratio between 1.25 and 1.50, including 1.25 and 1.50
Triangle or cut-corner triangle outline
Triangle cushion outline with rounded corners (“trilliant”)
Square or cut-corner square outline
Rectangle or cut-corner rectangle outline
Pentagonal cushion outline
Any regular hexagonal outline
Any regular octagonal outline
Pear, tear, or drop outline
Marquise outline
1-fold radial symmetry
1-fold mirror symmetry not otherwise listed
2-fold radial symmetry
L/W ratio > 2
"Cutthroat" Forbidden design features:
Triangle cushion outline with pointed corners (“trillion”)
Oval outline with an L/W ratio greater than 1.50
Square cushion outline (“cushion”)
Heart or shield outline
Rectangle cushion outline (“pillow”)
Pentagon outline with straight edges
Checkerboard crown with rectangular checkers
2-fold mirror symmetry otherwise not listed
Scoring:
Scoring via open poll: There will be an open poll for 15 days after the submission deadline, allowing anyone to vote for their favorite design. Each competition entry will be assigned an anonymized ID, starting with C for the "Cutthroat" category and M for the "Maximize" category. All identifying information will be stripped. If a competitor discloses the anonymized ID associated with his or her designs, that competitor will be disqualified from the competition. This is to ensure that people vote based on design, and not based on the author.
Each choice in the poll will be labelled by anonymized ID. Each will show the entire anonymized design, with two animated .gif images. The first will be a 300x300 GemRay rendering of a clear stone in the competitor’s designed refractive index. The second will be a 300x300 GemRay rendering as a pink-green test. Both will be rendered using a 30* tilt window and a 10* head shadow.
This poll will operate under an “alternative vote” system, also called a “ranked choice vote” or an “instant runoff vote”. Voters will numerically rank all of the designs in each category, ranking their favorite design as “1”, their next-favorite as “2”, and so on, until all designs are ranked. Voters may vote in both categories. All votes are weighted the same.
If a design earns more than 50% of the total votes in a category, that design and the design with the second-highest number of votes will become the two finalists in that category. If no design earns more than 50% of all votes, then a runoff process begins. The design with the lowest number of “1” votes will be removed from the running. Ballots with that design listed as #1 will have their votes distributed to the second preference listed, #2. This process is repeated until one design holds more than 50% of the total votes in the category.
Among the four finalists, the design with the greatest total number of votes will be the grand prize winner.
Submissions:
How to Enter:
To submit your design, send a copy of the diagram (GemCAD files are preferred) to faceting101@gmail.com. In the subject line, include your name and which category your entry is for. If the design is for the Maximize category, include which crystal shape the design is written for in the body of the e-mail. If the design is for the Cutthroat category, include which design feature you'd like to ban everyone else from using.
For example, if I wanted to send in an entry for the Maximize category designed for a beryl crystal, I'd use the subject line "Arya Akhavan - Maximize", and in the body of the e-mail I'd put "hexagonal prism".
All submitted designs will be re-drawn in GemCAD. This is done to ensure that all designs will be written using a standardized convention, preventing voters from using naming and organization conventions to recognize a specific person’s design.
All entries will be anonymized by being assigned a number in order of submission.
Each competitor may enter a maximum of one design per category. Competitors may enter one or both categories, for a total of two entries.
A single design may only be submitted to one category.
A single designer can become the finalist in multiple categories.
All designs submitted to the competition will be entered into the Gemology Project after the contest, in a "Faceting Design Contest 2014" section. Full credit will be given to the author of the design.
By submitting an entry, you agree that the design you submit is freely in the public domain.
Design Rules:
All designs must have a faceted girdle. The girdle is not required to be level (see Robert Strickland’s "No Stinkin’ Badges" design from the 2013 competition).
Diagrams which require the use of a CAM preform will be accepted. The CAM preform will be included in the final facet count and the final tier count.
All designs must be able to be generated in strict meetpoint fashion. Diagrams which use floating facets or step facets, diagrams that require measurement, and diagrams which cannot be recreated in meetpoint fashion will not be accepted.
If your design cannot be generated in strict meetpoint fashion, you will be informed on where and how the design cannot be reproduced, and you will be allowed to resubmit after corrections.
Previously published designs will not be accepted.
Designs that are considered to have gross defects (substantial tilt windowing, substantial head-on window, etc.) will not be accepted.
There is no advantage or disadvantage to voting earlier or later in the voting period.
Only the “Cutthroat” category grants an advantage to submitting entries earlier in the submission period. The other category does not grant an advantage for an earlier submission.
Designs written for a gemstone with a refractive index above 2.62 and/or a dispersion value above 0.280 will not be accepted, due to the fact that no such gemstone exists.
While a test-cut of your design entry is highly recommended, it is not mandatory.
Deadlines:
September 30th, 11:59 PM EST - Submission period for designs ends.
October 1st - Voting period begins.
October 15th, 11:59 PM EST - Voting period ends.
October 16th - Objective scores released. Finalists and Grand Prize winner announced.
Prizes:
Donors:
Dave Williams
Arya Akhavan
Anonymous donor #1
Anonymous donor #2
Anonymous donor #3
Grand Prize: All of the following items (donated by several people):
Two giant chunks of ametrine (will need sawing and trimming)
1x arge dark blue, 1x large light blue mystery synthetic
Large purple CZ
Kunzite
Finalist Prizes: The finalist prizes will be distributed to the runners-up. All donated prizes will be combined into a common pool and redistributed as evenly as possible among the finalists. The Grand Prize-winning entry will not be eligible for Finalist prizes; however, a designer with multiple designs may win both the Grand Prize for one design in one category, and a finalist prize for a different design in a different category.
Kunzite
A whole bunch of quartz, citrine, smoy quartz, and lemon quartz
A whole bunch of straw sunstone, some with schiller, some with color
Clear synthetics of some sort
A bunch of colorful CZ
Two pieces of included-but-beautiful sphalerite
Three Apache's Tears
AZ peridot
Fluorite
One grey and one red mystery synthetic
Another bag of random stuff that's buried too deep under my bed for me to bother with right now.
Last edited by Faceting 101 by Arya on Sat Nov 15, 2014 5:05 pm, edited 36 times in total.
Post subject: Re: GO Faceting Design Competition 2014 (!)
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 3:44 am
Moderator
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 10:06 pm Posts: 2267 Location: Chapel Hill, NC / Toronto, ON
Just like with last year, the rules are subject to change until the first person submits a design. So, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, complaints, rants, incoherent babblings, or prize donations, let me know.
I'm still only seeing Maximize and Cutthroat. While this isn't something I can enter, I really loved seeing the results of the last one. I'm excited to see how things go this time around.
Post subject: Re: GO Faceting Design Competition 2014 (!)
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:23 pm
Moderator
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 10:06 pm Posts: 2267 Location: Chapel Hill, NC / Toronto, ON
Oh yeah, there are only two this year. I wanted to try and get as many people to do these two and just these two, because it would give a greater number of interesting designs, and fewer finalists would mean that each of them gets a larger prize. Still need to update that list of prizes though - I have a giant bag of donations under my bed.
Hehe, sorry, I misinterpreted how you were correcting the inconsistency. I really like both of these challenge ideas--the more restrictive the requirements, the more creativity/weirdness we will see.
Post subject: Re: GO Faceting Design Competition 2014 (!)
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:26 pm
Moderator
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 10:06 pm Posts: 2267 Location: Chapel Hill, NC / Toronto, ON
Nope, I'm just giving kunzite to everyone!
Also, I pushed the deadline back, so that the info could go out on the USFG newsletter. I completely forgot to e-mail Howard Bromley before June; if I had done that, then everything would have gone on time
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 34 guests
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot post attachments in this forum