Trilogy East-West

Trilogy East-West

The Trilogy East-West command builds an advanced basket around every gem of a trilogy: one basket for the center stone and one shared by the two side stones. Each basket has its own prongs and one or two rails, and the prong layout adapts to the shape of the stone it holds.

The command works on a Three Stones element. Run it and pick one of the three gems — the set is resolved from its group. If the picked gem is not part of a Three Stones element, the command asks for the three gems manually and works out which is the center from their positions. There is no shape restriction: the basket accepts any cut.

The panel opens on the element library; pick a saved Trilogy East-West design or click the pen icon to start editing.

The four tabs

Parameters is split into four tabs: Center Prong, Center Rail, Side Prong and Side Rail. The two Side tabs carry an Edit separately toggle — with it off the side baskets simply copy the center one (and the tab shows a note saying so); with it on they get their own set of values.

Prongs

Each basket starts from a layout preset. The Assets row shows the presets available for that gem’s shape, so an emerald center offers its four corners, a trillion side its three vertices, and so on. Pick one and the basket is rebuilt with that number and distribution of prongs.

Below the presets there is a single prong editor that drives all the prongs of the basket at once: what you change is copied to every prong (their positions stay as the preset placed them).

• Mode: Round, Custom, Double, Triple or Claw.
• Top Profile and Bottom Profile: In Custom mode, the closed profiles used for the section of the prong; the bottom can be Round or Custom (same as top).
• Diameter and Bottom Diameter: Section of the prong at the top and at the bottom.
• Height: Length of the prong.
• Gem Inside: How deep the prong bites into the stone.
• Over Girdle: How far the prong rises over the girdle.
• Rotation: Turns the prong section.
• Exp. Manufacturing: Extra length added for production, visible in Manufacturing mode.
• Bottom Inside: How far the foot of the prong leans towards the axis of the stone.
• Separation and Exterior Gem Inside: Only for Double and Triple prongs — how far apart the strands sit and how deep the outer ones bite.
• Cap Distance, Cap Height, Tip Width and Tip Smoothness: The claw cap, only for Claw mode.
• Inclination and Inclination Z: Tilt the prong and control where along its length the tilt starts.
• Tangent: Makes the prong leave the rail tangentially instead of at an angle.

Rails

Each basket carries a Top rail, always present but switchable off, and an optional Bottom rail, both in their own collapsible sections with an Enable toggle. Each rail has the same editor:

• Mode: Round or Custom Shape, the latter sweeping a closed profile from your asset library.
• Width and Height: Dimensions of the rail section.
• Under Girdle: How far below the girdle the rail sits.
• Rotation: Rotates the profile in its section plane.
• Bend Height and Bend Rotation: Bend the rail out of its plane.
• Fillet Radius: Rounds the edges of the rail.
• Rail Offset Y: Displaces the rail sideways.
• Creation: Sweep or Revolve.
• Profile Pos.: Whether the profile is read Front or Side.
• Mirror: None or Mirror, to flip an asymmetric profile.
• Gem size Percentage: Percentage of the gem the rail wraps.

Visualization

Four toggles — Hide Center Gem, Hide Side Gems, Hide Center Basket and Hide Side Baskets — help you work on one part at a time. They only affect the view: the whole piece is computed when you accept.

Stones

The Stones expander is the complete Three Stones editor — shape, material, carats, distance above ring and rotation for the center stone, and angle, rotation and rotation Y for the sides. While the panel is open the document gems are hidden and drawn by the preview; on Accept the whole set is re-baked with its baskets.

Saving your work

Save defaults in the header stores the current configuration for the next run (right-click to restore the factory values), and the save button keeps the design as a named preset in the element library, ready to be applied to another trilogy.