Luxexcel is sitting on a technology that could transform the way the eyewear business works but it is taking a very measured approach to its introduction.
Last year at Vision Expo East Luxexcel launched its 3D printed lens production process to a global audience (See Optician 12.05.17). Since then its system has been installed in one lab in the US with another to come online shortly. Mido in Milan marked the European launch with an announcement of its first lab partner already in the pipeline.
The process works by gradually building up the lens by depositing tiny amounts of fluid, drop by drop. The resulting lens requires no cutting, working, polishing. It can be coated without the need for any reworking, or even cleaning.
The approach Luxexcel is taking in commercialising the process is to license the technology rather than sell machines, as marketing, communications manager Eva Flipse explains: ‘We are now producing commercial lenses in the US. We do not sell the machines, we fit them and the lab pays on a royalty basis.’ While Flipse wouldn’t talk about volumes, either those the machine is capable of or the number produced by its first lab customer, she was keen to talk about the company’s approach to 3D optical lens printing.
Its first customer, IFB Solutions encapsulates Luxexcel’s approach to the market. IFB is a provider of products to visually impaired ex-service personnel, it is also the USA’s biggest employer of visually impaired people. It makes lenses for both its employees and ex-service personnel who require complex lenses.
The approach, says Flipse, is to apply the 3D technology to areas of lens production that are difficult when using traditional techniques. ‘At the moment we are focusing on the speciality niche,’ she says. The kinds of complex lenses 3D printing is suited to are lenticular lenses, slab offs and high dioptre powers. Flipse says producing complex lenses for the visually impaired fits in with the strategy. Get the technology right for lenses that require customisation of the shape around altered optical centres and look at the prospects for volume lens manufacture later, she adds.
Proof of concept ideas at Mido, and below
‘The benefit of 3D printing of lenses is that you can do things that are difficult today,’ says Flipse adding that it didn’t just means things that are done today. Luxexcel’s stand in Milan included a section dedicated to a host of proof of concept ideas. These included lenses with an RFID microchip embedded within the monomer, LED lights, or other filters such as colours or polarisation.
This opens the door to a whole host of virtual reality, signalling and other smart applications. She says a whole range of new ideas have been made possible because of the way the lens is made. ‘You can just stop the process,’ and embed anything you like: ‘that’s just not possible today.’
Flipse hints that an announcement of the European lab deal would come soon and that the customer would be a supplier of complex lenses.
The real excitement is around the prospects for new ideas for lens applications. She says the process is fully commercial but is still being tweaked. ‘The whole point of 3D technology is to do things that you can’t do today, we don’t want to be a me-too supplier.’ And when it comes to volume? ‘ Perhaps one day, but for now it’s complex lenses.’