Before faceting can begin, a gem cutter must take the rough piece of rock and decide how best to cut it. This is as much art as science, and it takes careful planning to prepare the stone so that the best possible finished gem (in terms of size, clarity, and color) is obtained. The first step, and one that is absolutely crucial, is orientation of the rough. Orienting is nothing more than the process of visualizing how the best possible gem can be extracted from the rough.

Let's take another look at the piece of apatite that we'll be cutting:

Looking at it from the side, the crystal is rather well-shaped, having straight sides and very little in the way of surface fracturing or marring.

If you look down the length of the crystal, you'll notice that the color is no different in that direction than it was when we looked across the crystal. While this may seem like a no brainer, the truth is that many gems display completely different colors on different crystal axes (as explained earlier). For many materials, such as tourmaline and sapphire, this must be carefully considered when orienting rough for cutting.

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