An unfaceted gem — a polished dome over a flat or low-belly base. Used for opaque, translucent, and chatoyant stones (turquoise, opal, jade, cat's-eye chrysoberyl, star sapphires) where facets would be wasted. Reads soft, traditional, hand-shaped. The signet-ring stone, the Victorian mourning brooch.
Lapidary cabbing on a wheel — coarse grind to rough shape, fine grind to dome, pre-polish to remove scratches, polish on felt or hardwood lap with cerium-oxide or diamond paste. Dome height-to-base ratio typically 1:3 to 1:2. Optical phenomena cabochons unlock: chatoyancy (cat's-eye, in chrysoberyl), asterism (4-ray or 6-ray star, in corundum), play of color (in opal), aventurescence (in goldstone / sunstone). Faceting these stones would scatter the phenomenon out of view; cabochons concentrate it on the dome.
character — soft polished dome, hand-feel, color or phenomenon reads strongly.
GIA Diamond Grading and Identification literature; AGS American Gem Society cut-grading standards.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
A local-first library of materials, processes, applications, and finishes — equal weight, citable everywhere, so a student can move from "what is this" toward "what's actually buildable here, now, by me." Part of the renato.design ecosystem — sibling of Plenum, Specimen, Ingenue, gesture, graf, and the Renato Rhino plug-ins. Form and matter, inseparable.
Half of teaching materials is teaching how the material is made into the thing. The standard subscription library was always light on that half. The wedge here isn't better samples or a prettier interface — it's treating Process as a peer entity, not a footnote.
Conway, Lefteri, Forty, Sparke, ASM, GIA. Every voice: Voices.
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