Unfortunately, no Breakthrough yet, but some interesting possibilities.
Back in 2013, I wrote a 7 part saga about an imaginary Strabismus Institute. Unfortunately, I did not heed Specs4ever’s valuable caution about writing and editing the whole story, before publishing any of it. I ran out of ideas about how to end the story. Several people, including me, felt the ending was not very satisfying.
I still want to re-write those stories, but haven’t had time or inspiration. That is NOT what this piece is about, but there may be some inspiration in here, somewhere.
In the stories, one of the machines the Institute had developed was a 3D printer for making high quality, complex, prism lenses very quickly. I was called to task for suggesting a printer like that. It was too far fetched and it would be impossible to build a printer like that. I agreed that it was impossible to print a useful ophthalmic lens using existing 3D printing technology, but that is what imaginations are for. You have to DREAM it, before you can DO it.
I have been an avid “Hard” Science Fiction (not Fantasy) reader since I was about 10, some 67 years ago. Many of the impossible, imagined, things I have read about or seen in movies or on TV, are in common use today. I remember a few laughs in one of the Star Trek movies when Scotty tried to talk to a computer using a mouse. Have you asked Siri a voice question on your iPhone or iPad lately and had your question answered, also using voice? I have! The “impossible” future is all around us.
This morning, I saw and read about a new way to do 3D printing. This method might have some ophthalmic possibilities. Read on and I will provide a link that describes the new 3D printing method, but first a little background.
Those of you who need complex or very strong lenses, particularly those with a prism component, know that getting satisfactory glasses made is a very long, drawn out, frustrating, and expensive process. Often it involves several remakes of the lenses to achieve comfortable “wearability” and even those have marginal optical properties and offer less than 20/20 vision. Part of the problem is that making quality, ophthalmic lenses, particularly those with significant prism correction, is almost a lost art.
Before the development of surgical techniques for correcting strabismus, the only available solution was prism glasses. Over time, ECPs and Lens Makers became quite expert at prescribing and making glasses with significant prism for strabismus and often the related, high PLUS, for hyperopia. Today, most of the people, who were really expert in the field, have either retired or died. Only a few specialty labs are really good at making glasses with complex, high prescriptions.
The new 3D printing method is potentially a breakthrough, disruptive technology, that could make some big changes in many manufacturing processes, including those for making lenses. There are many problems to solve before the technology could inexpensively make transparent, ophthalmic quality lenses, but you have to start somewhere. The link I promised is:
Carbon3D.com
Take a look at what scientists and engineers at Carbon3D have created and let your imagination soar. You may have noticed that, to date, 3D printing has only been able to make translucent rather that transparent plastic objects. Often, translucency is caused by microscopic bubbles or particles in the plastic. Most plastic lens blanks are made by a molding process and the final prescription is ground into the lens, if necessary, but maybe there is another way. The examples shown in the Carbon3D videos are all translucent, but appear to have almost polished shiny surfaces. Maybe, that was because what they were trying to do was make something similar to what conventional 3D printers do, but a lot more complex and a lot faster. In one of the videos, they explain why their process produces shiny surfaces almost as a side effect.
Maybe no one has suggested that there might be a market for custom printed ophthalmic lenses, but I’ll bet some of the people at Carbon3D wear glasses. The first step would be to make a simple + or - 1.00 lens with optical properties close to CR-39 or Polycarbonate. After that, it is just programming the prescription you want.
Stay tuned.
https://vision-and-spex.com/the-strabismus-institute-lens-making-breakthrough-t589.html