Varilux Physio comments & feedback please
I recently attended the launch for Varilux Physio here in the UK and during 2 days of being thoroughly looked after by Essilor, enjoying, fine food, entertainment, drunkeness and horse racing at cheltenham festival somehwere in there they mangaed to fit in a presentation regarding this new lens technology.:cheers:
I have to say that it does look pretty special, mapping wavefronts through both surfaces and surfacing both surfaces to reduce coma and other high order abberations etc....all very clever stuff. All the Essilor staff at the event were saying that this was just the tip of the iceberg and that they have only just begun to understand the capabilities of this new technology, which they have 5 seperate patents for. :cool:
Anyways I was just wondering what sort of reception this lens has received elsewhere as im sure that other countries have already been using it before us. Are you getting good responses from PXs using the lens and is it really as good as they say it is?
Anything else I ought to know before I start dispensing them to all our Panamic wearers?
by Essilor, enjoying, fine food, entertainment, drunkeness
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bezza
I recently attended the launch for Varilux Physio here in the UK and during 2 days of being thoroughly looked after by Essilor, enjoying, fine food, entertainment, drunkeness and horse racing at cheltenham festival somehwere in there they mangaed to fit in a presentation regarding this new lens technology
If a company can still do product launch parties of that kind.........in the UK and how many other countries.................they for sure will price the product accordingly and count on major sales figures.
The customer will always have to pay back advertising cost and original R&D in the price of the product.
Remember there are two Physio's - Regular and 360
The regular is produced just like the Panamic.
The 360 uses a point file produced surface.
I do not understand the logic in calling these both a Physio but it is not my company.
How does Physio do all of this customization?
Bezza:
Quote:
From what I understand the physio has the front surface adjusted and surfaced by their wavefront management software and back surface produced in the normal fashion, while panamic is merely a well designed back surface progressive.
The 360 on the other hand has both surfaces compensated and is surfaced using their point by point twinning surfacing technology, in other words both surfaces have the wavefronts mapped and compensated to reduce high order abberrations and unwanted astigmatism.
http://www.lasikinstitute.org/Wavefront_Technology.html Eye Surgery Education Council:
Quote:
Wavefront-guided LASIK is a promising new technology that provides an advanced method for measuring optical distortions in the eye. Measuring and treating these distortions goes beyond nearsighted, farsighted, and astigmatism determinations that have been used for centuries. As a result, physicians can now customize the LASIK procedure according to each individual patient’s unique vision correction needs. The treatment is unique to each eye, just as a fingerprint is unique. Wavefront systems work by measuring how light is distorted as it passes into the eye and then is reflected back. This creates an optical map of the eye, highlighting individual imperfections.
If wavefront technology measures the human eye to develop a custom lens, then how can this be done for each patient using prescription eyewear where the know input for the custom lens is limited to Sphere, Cylinder, Axis and Prism, plus frame dimensions for alignment?
I know the limits to customizing lenses using front molded lenses like Panamic is the limitation of traditional surfacing cutting only spherical cuts. The Physio 360 and the Seiko Succeed Internal PAL a cut by point files. I don't know the number of possiblities for the 360 but not counting prisim there are over 2,000,000 customized lenses available using the Seiko Succeed Internal PAL. Each prescription is individually mapped to the available information. Physio 360 does not have access to a map of the cornea for each patient and therefore can not be custom made to match each patients cornea, which is what most eyecare professionals have come to understand Wavefront technology does. It is my opinion the some cleaver marketing is going on with the use ot the term W.A.V.E. Technology. Notice the periods in the marketing material after the W.A.V.E.
I am naturally open to seeing opposing or additional views on this W.A.V. E. Front technology from Essilor. (I am not saying anything negative about the quality of the Physio lens as I have not done any testing on this lens)
Marketing Marketing Marketing, please some science!
Bezza:
Quote:
Although im sure that other manufacturers use very similar technologies to design their lenses and the wide range of ILDs offer compensated back surfaces but to be able to compensate both surfaces in combination to further optimise the wavefront is something altogether unique. I had some rather lengthy chats with some of the technical guys from Essilor while at the launch and they were really excited at the possibilities offered by this new technology. In theory this means that they now have the ability to put varying amounts of sph, cyl, prism on either/both surfaces and in any fashion they think will help to achieve better acuity, comfort and field of vision.
Think about the advantage of compensating both surfaces. If designing the lens could be done with a spherical front curve and the light waves are designed to be refracted throught the lens to optimize the vision rather than putting some non spherical surfaces on both sides of the lense, there is a big advantage. The lens can be edged to fit the frame curve without overhange around a portion of the lens.
Also consider that Essilor does not have access to the patent that allows progressives to be produced on the back surface of a spherical lens. If they could do it this way I would bet they would and all of the marketing material would tell you how much better a backside individualized lens is. The keyhole effect. Stand 10 away from a keyhole in a door. What can you see through the keyhole? Now go up to the door and put you eye up to the keyhole; wow a wide field of vision. This is a simple example of the advantage to a backside design.
Physio360 amoung others...
Physio 360 (among many others) is an improvement to normal front side progressives. However, they do not surface the front side. It is a cast normal front side progressive that they say is digitally designed (marketing). The distance/intermed/near are all done on the front side (confronted essilor on this and they admitted this -pre-moulded progressive). The backside of the progressive is aspheric/atoric and that is where the freeform component comes it. This asphericity allows for less abberation in the periphery.
Dont take my word for it. To find out if you have a front side progressive and an aspheric inside curve (physio 360 while physio is just a normal conventional prog) simply use a sag gauge on the front of the progressive in different areas and u will see that all of the progression is on the front of the lens. If you clock the back (on the two meridians) you will see that there is only the slightest amount of asphericity. An improvement or conventional progressives but by no means the holy grail. Fully internal progressive are the real deal.
With respect to essilor claiming their fix higher order abberations well, its a marketing lie. Why? You need to know what you are correcting for. You need an abberometer which measures a persons eye and the higher order abberations therein (opthonics does this). The you can use that mapping to recreate and fix the higher order abberations. However you must ask yourself... if someone adjust their glasses or moves their eyes... that fix is out the door because that fix is at a fixed point only. Marketing is what these big vendors do best. Their staff simply spout what they are told and like to dazzle and wow people with a whole bunch of complexities that are more weighted towards marketing vs truth. That said it is definately an improvement over normal progressives, however i believe fully internal progressive (sag on front reads spherical and full progression on back) is the way to go. Overcomes the inherent weaknesses of having to look through lens material before you can even get to the active curves of the lens (the progression on the front side of progressives)
Also there are dual patents issued in north america for fully internal progressives. Seiko has one, and so does Zeiss/Sola. This means everytime someone produces any internal progressive (their own included), they have to pay just over $3US each. This is the most probably reason why Essilor has not come out with there own fully internal yet (however i suspect they will because the patents are being fought in court). Keep in mind the Essilors and big vendors are marketing machines that know exactly how to successfully launch products and create buzz.
Cheers,
doclabs