Digital surfacing. (There, I said it.)
This is the only place in the world to discuss this.
Ok, so I have been told by someone who should know (wholesale lab rep) that digital surfacing is better than traditional surfacing.
I saw some pictures of the process, and it looks like "a needle" cuts a rotating lens.
Why is digital surfacing better? Because complicated surfaces can be cut that minimize abberation (I believe). The back surface of a digitally surfaced spherocyl may not be the "inside of a teaspoon" shape, but something that resembles a landscape with rolling hills (very, very, rough, there).
Why is digital surfacing better? This may be something I imagine I heard, but, similar to how progressives are designed with ray-tracing to correct the off-axis powers at different angles of gaze, this technology can be applied to the design of higher power SV lenses, as well. Does anyone know if I'm even close on that one?
Why is digital surfacing better? Whether digitally surfacing a mold for the front surface of a progressive, or surfacing an actual lens, the process itself is "cleaner and more precise".
The question is: how much better, and who will perceive it? We may be in a transitional state where we need to identify who will benefit from these incremental improvements, until it becomes commonplace.
Great explaination of freeform
Darryl offer a great explaination regarding digital surfacing and freeform products and processes.
As Darryl pointed out there is a great deal of technical experience required to complete the non-spherical surface.
There are three basic techniques used for lens production:
1- Finished lenses ready to edge
2- Traditional spherical backside surfacing with hard laps, pads and polish used to finish the lens
3- New individualized freeform-digitally surfaced or what ever new buzz word is adopted lenses produced without traditional hard laps. (To maximize this type of lens production they must be combined with a sophisticated lens design.)
Benefits to Digital Surfacing
drk said:
Quote:
We have to understand this new technology well enough to know whether applying it will give anything close to the desired results! It may be a waste, especially in the emerging, more expensive phase of this move forward.
To help you understand the some of the advantages, (I will try not to make this a sales pitch), the benefits I will focus on lens designs that I am very familiar with. Having worked very close with Seiko Epson the technology partner behind Seiko lens designs I can tell you that the benefits to their approach will work very well with all current information needed such as OC height, PD, A, B, ED, sphere, cylinder, axis etc. This allows for the individualized lens being produced with between 20% to 30% more usable area. With more usable lens area there is also greater room for fitting errors. These types of designs will become more and more popular since fitting errors will not require as many remakes because the patient can still use the progressive from top to bottom and from side to side. A good case can be made to use this type of lens and make sure your least experienced opticans fit only this lens, less mistakes, fewer remakes, more happy patients.
The ICE-TECH Advanced Polarized sunlens is a fantastic lens 8 base front curve and -6.00 sphere fully compensated with a lens carrier area on the temple side. Large optical zone minimum of 50mm and usually 55mm or more. All that is needed to fit this lens to a wrap frame, is the frame, and the OC height, any change in vertex distance, and the patient Rx with PD.
This is a product that only ICE-TECH offers and patients with strong Rx's have been asking for.