About WTOCD

Annual report
History
Funding
WTOCD patents
Board

Annual report

Annual report 2009 (English)

Jaarverslag 2009

History

WTOCD was founded in 1977 by the Belgian gem diamond manufacturers. The main goal was to give technical support and to develop machinery and devices for diamond manufacturing.

The first projects focused on abrasive sawing, bruting and yield optimisation of diamond.

In the field of yield optimisation WTOCD played a pioneering roll. From the start there was a joined project on optimisation techniques together with the University of Namur, supported by the government. Afterwards the focus shifted to 3D reconstruction of rough diamonds with the aid of image processing. This lead to several products containing the results of these ongoing studies, namely, Solid, Merlin and AutoMark.

Different sorts of bruting machines were developed by WTOCD. One of the major breakthroughs was the use of stroboscopic light to examine the diamond in process. This gave the industry an economical advantage over other worldwide competitors. If hand bruting is almost absent in industry today then this has a lot to do with the quality of the current WTOCD/Comdiam bruting machines. The EOS-project resulted in a completely new concept of bruting. The finish and the accuracy of the girdle are not comparable with anything else today.

The research in automatic polishing resulted in the development of the Octopus polishing set-up. The industrial version, developed together with Verhaert Design, is now wide spread in the industry.

In the field of laser machining first the expertise was built on the physical process of laser interaction with diamonds. In de early 90’s the idea grew to combine the efforts of the rough analysis team together with the laser knowledge into a 3D laser machine for diamonds. The result was Solid, an acronym for Scanning and Optimising Laser Integrated Device.
Today this is still, worldwide, the only laser machine capable of real 3D-machining.

WTOCD was one of the co-designers of the Flanders Brilliant. We improved the look of the model and improved the accuracy of the cutting process by rearranging the order in which the facets were polished. More recent work is kept confidential because of patent issues.

The focus in all projects is moved to intelligent software. There is a continuous growth of software-integrated devices. Besides embedded software development (Hearts and Arrows, EOS, SOLID, Lumisense, ...) there is also desktop software development. The topics are simulation of the cutting process, custom model designer, brilliant cut properties and several others.

WTOCD Patents

BE0889920: Werkwijze en inrichting voor het snijden van sierstenen
Filing date: 11/08/81
Publication date: 11/02/82
Inventor: Bosschaert, Hendrik
Family members: ZA8104886, US4425900, IL0063392, GB2082100, DE3130721, CH0652064

BE1009003: Werkwijze en inrichting voor het slijpen van edelstenen
Filing date: 20/12/94
Publication date: 01/10/96
Inventor: Schouwenaars, Jozef
Family members: WO9619318, EP0799110, ZA9510553, US5816896, RU2150366, IL0116316, DE69512535, AU4168896

BE1014212: Werkwijze en inrichting voor het bepalen van de hoek tussen facetten van een transparant object
Filing date: 05/06/01
Publication date: 03/06/03
Inventor: Verbeke Johan; Blanchaert Maxime; Cooke Peter
Family members: WO02099359

BE2002/0427: Werkwijze en inrichting voor het onderscheiden van edelstenen
Filing date: 05/07/02
Publication date: 07/01/04
Inventor: Claus, Patrick
Family members: EP1378748

BE2004/0559: Werkwijze voor het onderscheiden van kleurloze en bijna kleurloze diamanten en opstelling voor het uitvoeren van deze werkwijze
Filing date: 05/07/02
Publication date: 07/01/04
Inventor: Claus, Patrick
Family members: EP1657544A1, US7277161

Funding

WTOCD is a collective centre funded by the gem diamond industry, through the umbrella organisation AWDC (Antwerp World Diamond Center). Other funds are provided by private customer projects and through collective projects subsidized by the Flemish Government via IWT.

IWT-Vlaanderen, the “Instituut voor de aanmoediging van Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie in Vlaanderen”, supports Flemish based diamond companies in different ways in their innovation efforts.
Support to WTOCD
o Collectief Onderzoek (CO)
As knowledge centre of the Belgian diamond sector, WTOCD produces solutions that deliver a surplus for the whole Belgian diamond sector. The whole diamond sector has access to the results
o Technologische Dienstverlening (TD)
The TD is aimed at all Flemish based diamond companies to offer solutions for technological problems. Not only specific technical problems are solved but also innovation, as a concept, is stimulated.
Support to the companies
o Grondige Technologische Adviezen (GTA)
A company can ask the centre to work out a more extensive advice (approximately 10 days of work). There is no administration involved for the company. A KMO gets subsidized 80% of the invoice, a GO 50%.
o KMO-programme
A company carries out an innovation project or a feasibility study. The TD of WTOCD can help the company to select the appropriate channels and prepare a well-founded application file. Basic subsidies are 50% (maximum 25000 euro) for feasibility studies and 35% (maximum 200.000 euro) for innovation projects. More info can be found here .

Board

Members of the board

fifteen members appointed by "Syndicaat der Belgische Diamantnijverheid"

for "Syndicaat der Belgische Diamantnijverheid":

Mr E. DENCKENS (Chairman)
B. DE HANTSETTERS
D. LOOTS
W. OLLECH
J. VAN EYCK
A. VERHAERE
S. FISCHLER

for "Vereniging van Kempische Diamantwerkgevers vzw":

Mr W. RUYTHOOREN

for "Antwerpsche Diamantkring cv":

Mr M. APSEL

for "Beurs voor Diamanthandel cv":

Mr A. BELLER

for "Diamantclub van Antwerpen cvba":

Mr K. SMETS

for "Vrije Diamanthandel nv":

Mr J. DRYBOOMS

for "Belgische Vereniging van Handelaars, In- en Uitvoerders van Geslepen Diamant bv":

Mr R. KIEK

for "Groepering der Industriediamantfirma's in België bv":

Mr Ch. CYTO

for "Vereniging van Handelaars in Ruwe Diamant bv":

Mr R. STEIGRAD

one member appointed by "Vereniging van Kempische Diamantwerkgevers vzw"

Mr J. VAN DER VOORT

one member appointed by "V.E.V."

Mr G. BRYS (vice chairman)

Two members appointed by "A.B.V.V. Textiel, Kleding- en Diamant"

Mr F. KERKHOFS
E. VERPLANCKEN

Two members appointed by "A.C.V.-transcom-diamant"
Mr G. TIELEMANS
Ms M. DILLEN

six personalities with exceptional authority in scientifical and technological research three members appointed by the "syndicaat der Belgische Diamantnijverheid":

Prof. A. PERSOONS
Prof. G. VAN TENDELOO
Prof. R. VOCHTEN

three members appointed by the" Vlaams Instituut voor de bevordering van het Wetenschappelijk-Technisch onderzoek in de Industrie (IWT)":

Prof. D. SCHOEMAKER
Prof. J. VAN LANDUYT
Prof. H. REYNAERS

Members of the "Bestendig Comité"
Mr E. DENCKENS (chairman)
Mr G. BRYS (vice chairman)
Mr G. TIELEMANS
Mr W.OLLECH
Mr W.RUYTHOOREN
Mr B. DE HANTSETTERS
Prof. H. REYNAERS

Director of WTOCD

Mr Y. KERREMANS

Commissioners

Mr I. GEYSEBERGS
Mr.L. CORNELISSENS
Mr W. HENNEUSE