Progressive Lens Database

Hey Everyone,
I've been out to eyecare for several years and when I exited I removed my website, thelensguru.com, which featured a searchable database of PALs. I am considering publishing it again but since I've been out of touch I'm wondering if there is still a need for this. Since I don't have access to a lab or sales reps I'm totally out of touch with what's available. At the time I left, I was beginning to feel that with so many freeform lenses available (in almost any color/material) maybe my database had become irrelevant anyway.

I'm posting to try to get a feel for whether this would be useful still to the industry. Are there still new non freeform lenses being produced today or has freeform taken over? My personal feeling was/is that since freeform is available in almost anything, there is little reason to post every one of them. But maybe I'm wrong.

Let me know what you think, I'll be checking in.

~Tony

Hi Tony! Glad you surfaced. For those that don’t know, Tony had a great site for PAL identification. I hope life has been treating you well!

Free form is the dominate style of lens available today. The choices are endless as many labs choose to rebrand the designs and put their own engravings on the lenses. An accurate data base is almost impossible to maintain.
I remember your data base it was exceptional and a great tool to those who used it.

I'd be interested,
Maybe for the main manufactures: Zeiss, Hoya, Shamir, Essilor, Rodenstock, IOT and possibly VSP etc..
Probably would be too much effort though. Would be nice to have a comparison guide what is most like for like among the main companies.

Buying any and all Briot edgers.

https://epic.thevisioncouncil.org/

This is the most complete database that I know of. It even has a some of the "proprietary, if I tell you, I'll have to kill you" private labelled lenses. But there are hundred of rebranded IOT and others that will never be in there. I do remember your site, and using it. But for me the only useful thing about knowing a patients old design is to satisfy my curiosity. I don't think it's necessary at all from a dispensing perspective.

I just want to say thanks for all you have done in the past, Tony!

Hi Tony and a second thanks for what your past labors produced!

As I recall you dropped out when you couldn't find a way to monetize the site and I fear the same stumbling block is in your path.

That, and the mind boggling proliferation of different iterations of same designs would find you chasing your tail again. :frown:

I think you also had difficulty getting some companies to cooperate with information.

But it does look like your remote office location may afford you time to pursue an updated site!

https://www.thelensguru.com/

Stay well!!! :smile:

My biggest problem is the in house designs from other offices. There's no way to know if it is a digital design or conventional. Drives me nuts. It would be especially helpful to have the big box lens deisgns. Like Lenscrafters, Vision Works etc.

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Originally Posted by mervinek

My biggest problem is the in house designs from other offices. There's no way to know if it is a digital design or conventional. Drives me nuts. It would be especially helpful to have the big box lens deisgns. Like Lenscrafters, Vision Works etc.

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I'm curios what you would do with this information if you had it? How do you find it useful? Also a conventional PAL blank will have the engravings on the front side of the lens.

So many companies will do a conventional lens design with digital equipment. For example... is it that different optically if you have say a regular physio vs a "physio" design cut digitally? I guess you could say... digital means digital period, but I personally don't. If you compare that to a true digital design lens? I like to know what the patient is wearing so I can help them make the best decision for them to improve their vision. So... let's say you have a patient who is wearing a conventional design lens that lenscrafters cut with their digital equipment, but you don't really know if it is a true digital or not. I like my IOT design lenses and I like choosing my design based on patient need. (Also LOVE Camber, but that's another story.) It's also nice to know for insurance billing reasons. I just wonder how many of those chain stores are actually using standard lenses anymore. Idk just my own 2 cents.

Yeah I was going to write a paragraph about, "what is digital"? But that has been beaten to death and the industry is never going to standardize the nomenclature.

I as well love Camber lenses. So say you decided on a Camber Steady+ Intermediate design for a patient. Would what they were wearing previously somehow effect that? If they were wearing a Comfort vs a Autograph III lead you to a different recommendation of IOT product?

I doubt chains are using any front side molded blanks anymore. The inventory and cost is so much lower with freeform. As you said you can still make the cheap old designs on a freeform blank. Why house all that molded front inventory.

I have a lens mapping flyer that I made for my patients. It's generic and I plagerized images (shhh... don't tell). It basically shows a conventional channel and a digital channel. It shows that patients will benefit from a digital design. But if the lens is really a regular design cut digitally then the channel would be closer to a conventional channel, not as wide, right? If I can't tell if they are wearing a conventional channel vs a true digital design then who knows if they are going to notice a difference? I would hope they would because the other shop probably didn't know what they are doing, but it's nice to know what they are coming from. Then I can say that we can tweak the digital design some more by choosing a lens design that's made for how you use your eyes! Do you do a lot of close work? Maybe the perspective N is the lens for you. Or maybe you need more width? Endless would be best. (I personally love this design). Anyway... it allows me to know what the expectations are and manage them. I hope that makes sense!

But no, doubt they are using the old molded crap.

You can always tell if a lens is a digital design with your lens clock. Digital will always be spherical on the front except if is camber.
a moulded progressive that is duplicated digitally will actually not be as comfortable for the patient. To create the add power on the back you need a lower curve as an extreme example the distance Rx calls for +2.00 bc and has a +2.50 add to create the add you need a convex curve of + 0.50 so now the patient is looking through a double convex lens not good for wide reading area.
Digital lenses are always less expensive and if proper designs are chosen they will work better than a moulded lens.

Great advise with the lens clock! I never thought of that. Thank you!

Even if someone is in a conventional, front-side, molded PAL, just going to a digital design (meaning: back surface add, freeform generation, even design-by-Rx compensation) may not give any effect at all, depending on the lens power.

E.g. -1.00 D.S. with a +1.00 add: either way, the same.

(And yes, they claim that putting the add on the back-side will increase field-of-view by "up to 20%, but I'd be suprised if it's more than a few percentage points better.)

I think the big deal (other than off-axis compensation in the distance zone) is the way the newer designs are having a heyday with the corridors. Variable. Fixed. Asymmetric inset compensation. Rate of change choices. Shape of corridor/near zone options. Enough to make your head spin.

And of course POW for when it's needed...

My policy is to just put everyone in a compensated digital design (that will pay for it) and know that AS A GROUP they'll see better than whatever they have been wearing. We don't even discuss it.

This site can’t be reached

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Originally Posted by Kwill212

https://epic.thevisioncouncil.org/

This is the most complete database that I know of. It even has a some of the "proprietary, if I tell you, I'll have to kill you" private labelled lenses. But there are hundred of rebranded IOT and others that will never be in there. I do remember your site, and using it. But for me the only useful thing about knowing a patients old design is to satisfy my curiosity. I don't think it's necessary at all from a dispensing perspective.

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The site and that link both work perfectly fine for me...

Must've been temporary - works OK for me, now, too.

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Kwill212

The site and that link both work perfectly fine for me...

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