New Gen. PAL's: EXPERT HELP NEEDED

**rob.optician** · 08-31-2006, 05:08 PM

I've read the magazines, I've talked with reps. and sometimes it's just hard sorting through all of the marketing. What I want to know and I'm sure would be helpful to others is can somebody please briefly explain the pro's and con's of some of the new PAL's that are coming out?

Varilux Physio:

HOYA ID:

Kodak Unique:

Shamir Creation:

etc.etc.etc. They all have "the best - most advanced lens on the market" when I ask them lol...can someone please explain each of these to me?

Thanks!!

**For-Life** · 08-31-2006, 05:53 PM

I will try my best, but encourage others to correct the mistakes I make, and to fill in any holes.

Physio - Uses W.A.V.E Front technology as its strongest point. It is free form, but the design of the lens is all on the front with the rx surfaced in the back. Similar to traditional PAL's. The Physio 360, splits the desgin on the front and back surface of the lens and also uses W.A.V.E Front technology.

Hoya ID - Also splits the design on the front and back surface of the lens and is free form.

Kodak Unique - Places the design 100 percent on the back surface of the lens.

Shamir Creation - A tradition like design with the design on the front, surfaced on the back. Free form, that uses many curves to create a very flat and thin lens.

A couple of lens designs not mentioned:

Zeiss Individual - Free form design that uses the vertex distance and tilt to help individualize the lens. I am not sure of the design placement, but I think it is front and back split.

Varilux Ipseo: Uses W.A.V.E Front Technology. Front and back design split. Uses a machine called the Vision Print System that measures the head versus the eye movement and creates a lens based on those movements.

Shamir Autograph: I think it is back surface design, and is individualised based on tilt and vertex distance.

Seiko somethingsomething: Back surface design.

**AWTECH** · 08-31-2006, 07:11 PM

For-Life gave a good summary of some offering.

The Seiko Succeed (something something is not the trade name)

Excellent individual designs (produced using freeform technology equipment) offer many benifits, including about 30% more usable lens area in the case of the Seiko Succeed.

There are some lenses designs mentioned which are actually a traditional type of design and can not give the greater field of vision that a true individualized lens design can. Many companies are trying to accomplish what you are pointing out by you list of lenses, and that is that with words they can make traditional PALs sound as good or almost as good, or at least revolutionary designs. When they are actually very similar to the traditional PAL designs that have been produced under another name.

True individualized lens designs are creating a new Premium PAL catagory. Some of these new Individualized PAL lenses retail for over $400.00 and up to $700.00 or more.

It will take some education to learn about the new advances in PAL lens technology to properly inform the patients.

**Bill Mahnke** · 09-01-2006, 01:33 AM

The HOYA iD is the only lens available in the US that is totally Free-Form on both front and back surfaces and custom produced (in Germany). I understand there's a similar product available from Seiko (I'm also not sure of the name), I was told that it was only available in Japan??

With the iD - HOYA places 100% of the add power on the back surface (closer to the eye to reduce or eliminate distortion) and 100% of the distance power on the front surface (away from the eye to reduce vertical eye movement), making it easier for wearers to look from distance to near vision zones.

For those that don't know or not sure, most standard pals (semi-finished blanks) have the progressive design/add power on the front and the distance power on the back surface, so HOYA's changing things around a bit.

**AWTECH** · 09-01-2006, 01:45 AM

The Seiko Succeed is not only available in Japan, but also in the US from ICE-TECH Advanced Lens Technologies.

Seiko is the leader in freeform individualized lenses and ICE-TECH Advanced Lens Technologies is currently producing these in the US. We also produce our own ICE-TECH Advanced design polarized product featuring Thin-ICE Technology.

http://www.ice-tech.com/ice-techrx.asp see this link for more information.

**Bill Mahnke** · 09-01-2006, 02:21 AM

I'm not sure that the lens I was referring to was the Succeed. Unless I missed it, the link you supplied didn't cover anything on Free Form progressive lenses......

Please supply additional information about your Free Form progressive lenses.

Thanks!

Additional
If you go to the following link it says the Succeed is a "100% BACK SURFACE FREE-FORM PAL" http://www.plastic-plus.com/html/succeed_2.html

Say what you want but "100% back surface" is not the same as the iD's front and back surface Free Form technology. There's so much confusion and mis-information about today's Free Form progressive lenses, hopefully in time we'll get it all sorted out.

**AWTECH** · 09-01-2006, 06:11 AM

Bill;

My response was not meant to imply that the Seiko Succeed was a front and back surface design. I was addressing the statement you made:

I understand there's a similar product available from Seiko (I'm also not sure of the name), I was told that it was only available in Japan??

The Seiko Succeed name is a name used for the North American Market.
The Seiko lens is designed to properly change the direction of light throught the lens, as I am sure the Hoya lens also does. Each company selected a different method to accomplish a similar goal. Possibly the reason Hoya has the design with part on the front and part on the back is due to the fact that they do not have the ability to keep a spherical front with the PAL design on the back. Seiko Epson has a patent on this type of design. With a back surface design on the rear of a spherical surface you eliminate one big chance for error in the two sided design requires precise alignment of the second surface with the front surface during manufacturing.

We will be publishing more information on the web about the Seiko products that we produce in very near future.

**rob.optician** · 09-01-2006, 11:58 AM

I've also heard debates over what is actually free form and what is actually wave front. I know some people say that the Varilux Physio is not really using wave front technology like the izon lenses (which shoot a wave of light into the eye and meausre it as it is reflected back out...hence - wave front technology). I've also heard that the Varilux physio is NOT true free-form technology - Shamir has a "true" free form technology where they use a different type of blank - I know labs that have true free-form lenses need special equipment (that costs tens of thousands of dollars) installed just to be able to produce the lenses...otherwise they special order and that can take a couple weeks...I'm sure they're all "better" lenses - only time will tell which ones are really the best design out today.:hammer:

**drk** · 09-01-2006, 12:59 PM

Just a cranky observation:

All these design descriptions are great, but what we REALLY need is how these design features translate into BENEFITS.

In other words, SO WHAT?

If they're trying to sell me lenses based on features, then I'm pretty likely to get hyped up over a feature that is specific to a certain lens, but that feature may not translate into a definite benefit.

We need wearer studies, and who's going to do that?

Nobody. Just us front-line geeks who try different lenses on different people in a non-controlled "study" fraught with error...:(

**rob.optician** · 09-02-2006, 10:00 AM

lol...I liked the above response...that's the truth! We won't really know until we've tried each lens on 100 different people and it's worked with them all.

**For-Life** · 09-02-2006, 10:26 AM

Originally Posted by rob.optician

I've also heard debates over what is actually free form and what is actually wave front. I know some people say that the Varilux Physio is not really using wave front technology like the izon lenses (which shoot a wave of light into the eye and meausre it as it is reflected back out...hence - wave front technology). I've also heard that the Varilux physio is NOT true free-form technology - Shamir has a "true" free form technology where they use a different type of blank - I know labs that have true free-form lenses need special equipment (that costs tens of thousands of dollars) installed just to be able to produce the lenses...otherwise they special order and that can take a couple weeks...I'm sure they're all "better" lenses - only time will tell which ones are really the best design out today.:hammer:

Like I said, the Physio has a design just like the a traditional lens. Design on the front, rx on the back. I figure the blank is free form. The 360 is the true free form, and is actually only made in France (just like the Ipseo).

As for what benefits all of these lenses offer? Well they offer similar benefits. The wave front will give a clear perception and have gotten some "wow's" front that. But with part or the whole design being on the back you should get a wider area of viewing.

Which lens is the best? Well some of these designs are so similar that the design may not be the answer. Availability in material, transitions, and AR may be part of the answer. To me, and I may be wrong with this, but there appears to be several steps to build up to the top of the pyramid. The first is the traditional design, but done free form, with the design on the front, surfaced on the back. The next is a split design, with part on the front and back. The next step is back design. The next step is individualization based on frame measurement such as vertex distance and tilt. The final step is based on wearers movements.

**AWTECH** · 09-03-2006, 12:24 AM

drk said:

Just a cranky observation:

All these design descriptions are great, but what we REALLY need is how these design features translate into BENEFITS.

In other words, SO WHAT?

If they're trying to sell me lenses based on features, then I'm pretty likely to get hyped up over a feature that is specific to a certain lens, but that feature may not translate into a definite benefit.

We need wearer studies, and who's going to do that?

You are so right. I was responding to the statements made. ICE-TECH was selected by Seiko Epson of Japan as the first US company to meet their requirements for producing these lenses. Seiko Epson has been producing Seiko lenses using backsurface designs for 10 years. They are the worlds longest producer of freeform individual lenses. The main advantage to other than backsurface designs is to avoid patent infringement.

Benefits of the Backside individual designs:
Full side to side far vision
Wider corridor
Wider near

A traditional semi-finished PAL has the design on the front surface and is made to work in large frames or small frames, but the PAL design is the same. Much more customization is available with an individual lens.

For example: The Seiko Succeed is designed for individual frame and the PAL design is selected from over 2.5million possible designs (this does not count prism; with prism the design range total in the Billions)

Results are a wider lens that balances out any power error in each design individually. This in not possible with the tradition surfaced PAL lenses.

I hope this helps explain the differences.

Rob.Optician said:

Sad but True
lol...I liked the above response...that's the truth! We won't really know until we've tried each lens on 100 different people and it's worked with them all.

Seiko Epson has been producing and improving backside individual lenses for over 10 years. These are real life studies that have a 99% adaptation rate. I don't see how 100 additional lenses will prove anything useful.