Silmo on a high

Silmo seldom ceases to surprise its visitors but diversity is usually its trump card. Anyone boarding the Eurostar for Paris looking for lenses this October will have been bowled over by the strength of one theme Ð the individualised lens. Among the many high profile products in this sector at the event was the Hoyalux iD (see Professor Mo Jalie's feature, page 20). It set the common theme among such products with its connection between the visual stability for the wearer of the lens and the design of the power progression. It also took the Silmo D'Or lens accolade, beating rival Essilor on its home turf with its Hoyalux iD product. Essilor devoted most of its presence at the event to its Ipseo product (optician, October 8). Like the iD the Varilux Ipseo has been made possible through the use of direct surfacing technologies that allow lenses to be individually crafted. The Ipseo concept of defining the head/eye movement effect on viewing behaviour is backed up by the Vision Print system. This is a dispensing aid that many of the practitioners at the show liked. Taking the individualisation of the dispensing angle even further was the European combination of American Optical and Sola. One of best things about Silmo is that being an international show it allows the opportunity to see things not yet available in the UK but slightly over the horizon of product launches. One such example was the iQ Solutions Personal Vision booth on the AO/Sola stand. This was an idealised suite of equipment designed to build bespoke eyewear based on the wearers' needs. The iQ Navigator tools put the emphasis very much on technology including the iPilot, a Palm Pilot device that leads the eye care practitioner and the patient though the whole eye care experience. This enables prompts and recommendations for particular lenses to be made as the process progresses. The iPilot also provides a hand-held way of demonstrating options such as anti-reflective coatings or progressive lenses. Other devices such as the i.tracker looked at head movement and the i.imager helped automate fitting and frame material selection. The 'i.' theme continues into practice tools. Another individualised lens yet to make it to these shores is the Singular from BBGR. Although BBGR is one of the biggest lenscasters in Europe and one of the leading lens manufacturers in the UK it has, until recently, only serviced Dollond & Aitchison's practices. This all changed with the launch of BBGR UK (optician September 10). The yet-to-be-launched Singular is a progressive designed for young presbyopes. It mixes the concept of personalisation with the desire for a shallow fitting height. The lens can be dispensed with frames just 15mm deep said product manager Xavier Bonald, allowing young people to retain their identity and fashion sense. The individualisation of the lens is again linked to the head movement of the wearer. This categorises the wear into the head mover or eye mover type, allowing the viewing zone to be defined as necessary. This is very important for small frames said Bonald as: 'You have to have the right zone in the right place'. He also said the name had been chosen carefully to differentiate it from some of the descriptive titles of other products. The aim was to get across a name that described the wearer, the feel of city, fashion and lifestyle. Also banging the individualised lens drum was Carl Zeiss. Its big blue lab brought a little bit of humour to the subject by offering visitors an AV show on vision and perception. After the show in a huge blue cube, visitors moved through to the equipment and lenses on show in the innovation and technical area. This area contained a range of equipment designed to personalise the lens selection and dispensing process. Under the theme of 'Relaxed vision', sales and marketing director Raphael Scherer described how data from the dispensing area, such as digitised centration, could be used in the production of the lens. Indo also capitalised on its ability to offer both lenses and equipment to link the manufacture of the lens to the individualised offer for the wearer by promoting its Vision Map system. Rodenstock has long been a protagonist of individualised products, said French communications manager Chau Bau Tang. At the show the German lens giant was promoting its higher quality progressive lenses, in particular its Individual Lens Technology lens. She said that in France the market was clearly polarising into the higher quality opticians and the chains that were offering three-for-one deals. Rodenstock remained, she said, the only major supplier to offer an individualised frame and lens combination. This was essential. 'We have proper individualisation, you have got to take the lens and the frame together. Rodenstock is the only big player that supplies the lens and the frame.' Silmo is also a good opportunity to get up to speed with new materials on the market. One sunglass material making a big splash was NXT. This is an immensely strong, flexible and optically versatile sister material to Trivex. In a series of impressive experiments, NXT scientists showed the material's superiority to polycarbonate. Intercast, which owns NXT, said because the lens was cast and not injection moulded it suffered less stress cracking and could be used in photochromic or polarised form. A practical example of the use of this material was Julbo's Chameleon lens. The company claims that use of NXT under the Chameleon brand in its sunwear makes it the first polarised and photochromic sunspec. It is a plastic lens enjoying all of the benefits of plastic over glass. PPG, the maker of Trivex, ophthalmic stablemate of NXT, while not exhibiting at the show was there to talk about the progress of its material. Paul Peiffer, sales and marketing director, said the big effort now was educating eye care professionals about the qualities of the Trivex lens. He said over the coming year a series of seminars would be held to get the message across. He admitted that there had been issues concerning the edging of the material and a lot of work had taken place with machinery manufacturers. He said as new generation machinery was launched onto the market it would have a Trivex button along with all the settings needed to handle the material. He reiterated all of the advantages of Trivex, such as its mechanical strength, optical, quality and lightness and said those messages still needed to be promoted among eye care professionals. 'One of the main messages is that it is the best material for three-piece frames,' he said. Another innovative product making waves at Silmo was a twist on the ready reader called D' Free Eyes. This is an attractive range of ready readers that also feature a middle distance segment at the top of the lens. Its maker, Delta, describes this as multi-magnification and is at pains to stress that the product is an off-the-shelf reader for optical practices only. Hilda Lardet said D' Free Eyes had already been launched around Europe and would be making its way to the UK soon through Caseco. Lardet added that the product wasn't seeking to be a replacement for ophthalmic lenses but offered an improvement on ready readers. To position the product above ready readers the company is offering a range of attractive frames and tints across a selection of styles for both sexes.