Robot training data from Surat's diamond cutting and polishing workshops
Surat cuts and polishes most of the world's diamonds, and much of the polishing is still done by hand, one stone at a time. We record it as egocentric video and close-up footage: tiny, valuable objects handled with tweezers, holders and a loupe. It suits teams working on fine manipulation and careful hand-eye coordination.
The hand work
A rough stone passes through many hands before it's finished. Planners study it, often with a scanner, and mark where it will be cut. Machines now do much of the sawing and shaping, but polishing is still mostly a person at a spinning wheel called a scaife, holding the stone in a clamp, setting each facet against the wheel and lifting it again and again to check with a loupe.
Around the polishing benches there is just as much careful hand work. Sorters spread stones on a white tray and separate them by size, shape and colour with tweezers. Stones are weighed, folded into paper parcels and recorded lot by lot. The movements are small and exact, and the objects are often only a few millimetres across.
This is some of the finest manipulation you can film in a working factory: precise grips, constant checking, and the moments when a skilled person stops to look closer before going on.
Where we record
- Surat
- Diamond units are concentrated in areas such as Varachha and Katargam, from small workshops with a few benches to large factories. Polishing, sorting, weighing and parcel work.
Capture setups
- Head camera
- Follows the eyes from the stone to the wheel to the loupe, so you can see when and why the worker stops to check.
- Close-up camera
- A fixed camera with a macro lens above the wheel or the sorting tray, for detail a head camera can't resolve.
- Wrist cameras
- For tweezer work, where the fingers hide the stone from most other angles.
- Labels
- Step boundaries such as pick, place, polish and inspect, hand keypoints and a short description of each action, or your own guidelines.
Consent and privacy
Diamond units are strict about security, and rightly so. Before we start, the owner decides where cameras can point, which areas are off limits and whether stock or paperwork can appear on screen. Those rules go into the site agreement.
Every worker on camera signs an informed consent form. Faces, parcel labels and anything else the owner asks for are blurred before delivery.
Start with a pilot
Tell us which tasks you need recorded, the camera setup and the labels you want. We'll reply with questions and a plan for a pilot: a few hours of footage first, so you can check the quality before committing to more.