About Loupewise
Who builds it, what the engine is and is not, where every number comes from, and what nobody has checked yet. Written so that you can decide whether to trust it before you decide whether to pay for it.
Who builds it
Loupewise is built by Will Compton, in Ohio, trading as Compton Consulting (DBA Loupewise). He is a network engineer by trade and a gemstone collector by habit, not a gemologist, and he holds no gemological credential.
The tool started the way most collectors’ problems start: stones bought at auction, a refractometer kit, a copy of Gem Identification Made Easy and the Photoatlas of Inclusions, and the discovery that taking a reading is the easy half. Turning a reading into a short list of candidates means holding the properties of a hundred-odd species in your head, and the only visible way to learn that was a diploma course. Loupewise is the database half of that course, made usable from the first reading.
The honest line: the data comes from the published references listed below, and every field in the database is classified by where it came from. No credentialed gemologist has reviewed the database end to end yet. If you are one and you find an error, support@gemid-labs.com reaches a person who will fix it and name the source.
What the engine is, and is not
Loupewise does not use machine learning or image recognition. There is no camera step. The identification engine is a fixed set of property rules: you enter a reading, and every species whose published range cannot contain that reading is removed from the candidate list. Each removal is shown with the reading that caused it, so any result can be checked against the same property charts you could look up by hand.
Tolerances are deliberately conservative. A species whose published range contains your reading is never eliminated by it, which means the engine would rather leave a candidate on the list than remove the right answer. The full mechanism, including the tolerance values and how the next test is chosen, is on the methodology page.
What it does not do is stated on the pricing page, because that is where the question matters: no photographs, no valuations, no certifications, no affiliation with any awarding body.
Where the numbers come from
The gem database draws on sixteen named references. The properties behind the app are published as reference charts on this site and as an openly licensed dataset, so nothing in the engine depends on a number you cannot see.
- GIA Gem Encyclopedia
- GIA Laboratory Research & Technical Notes
- Gems & Gemology
- Gems: Their Sources, Descriptions and Identification (1994 and 2006 editions)
- Handbook of Gem Identification (1989)
- Gemology (1991)
- Gem Testing (1990)
- Gemstone Enhancement: History, Science and State of the Art (1994)
- Artificial Gemstones (2005)
- Photoatlas of Inclusions in Gemstones, Vols. 1–3
- Color Encyclopedia of Gemstones (1987)
- Gemstones of the World (2013)
- Gem Identification Made Easy (2012)
- SSEF Technical Notes & Swiss Gemmology
- Mindat.org, the mineralogy and mines database
Every field in every species record is classified as cited to one of these, computed from other cited fields, or internal to the app. Fields that are none of those are tracked in a list that is only ever allowed to shrink; the build fails if a new unsourced field appears. Where our sources disagree with each other, the record says so rather than picking one.
What a buyer should know
- Everything on this site is free to read, with no account: the charts, the species pages, the instrument guides and the study guides. The app’s identification engine and its full candidate list are free as well. Paid tiers add saving, statistics, the exam simulators and professional reports; the pricing page lists exactly which feature sits behind which price.
- Cancelling is yours to do at any time, from Settings › Account in the app or the web billing portal, and access runs to the end of the period already paid. Refunds for App Store and Google Play purchases follow those stores’ policies. The terms are in section 4 of the Terms.
- Your data is yours. You can delete your account from inside the app, and a machine-readable copy of your identification sessions is available on request to support@gemid-labs.com. The privacy policy lists what is kept and for how long.
- Loupewise has been in development since February 2026 and ships to iOS, Android and the web from one codebase. The version currently served on the web is published at
/version.json.
Contact
Questions, corrections and data requests: support@gemid-labs.com. Legal and privacy contacts are on the Terms and Privacy pages.