High-Definition Eyeglasses

Do you have 20/20 vision when you use your glasses but still feel discontented with how you see? You might take advantage of high-definition lenses.

Often, higher-order aberrations can affect your vision, even if your prescription eyeglasses completely remedy your nearsightedness, farsightedness and/or astigmatism. These aberrations might be due to the optical characteristics of your eyes or can be brought on by the optical constraints of traditional spectacles lenses.

High-Definition Eyeglass Lenses Review

However there’s excellent news! Current advances in lens production have actually made possible brand-new high-definition glasses lenses that remedy these aberrations, potentially providing you sharper vision than you’ve ever had prior to with eyeglasses. These lenses are designed to provide sharper vision in all lighting conditions and minimize glare for nighttime driving and other night vision tasks.

Lots of brands of high-definition spectacles lenses presently are offered, including high-definition versions of high-index lenses and progressive lenses.

Free-Form Lenses

The most popular type of high-definition spectacles lenses are called free-form lenses. The term “free-form” describes a sophisticated manufacturing process that reduces higher-order aberrations such as spherical aberration that occur in spectacles lenses created with standard eyeglass lens production tools and procedures.

With free-form lenses (also called digital high-definition lenses), the fabrication of the lenses from user’s eyeglass prescription is enhanced with computer-controlled surfacing equipment that is much more accurate than conventional tools.

In fact, free-form technology can emerge lenses in power increments of 0.01 diopter (D), compared with 0.125 to 0.25 D increments of standard spectacles lens tooling.

The fabrication of some digital, free-form lenses likewise considers how the lenses are positioned in front of the wearer’s eyes when in the eyeglass frame, to offer the most precise lens power and the sharpest vision possible.

Other elements that might be considered in the lens personalization process include the angle between the eye and the back surface of the lens in different look positions (for instance, when the wearer is looking off to the side rather than straight through the center of the lens), the frame size and the position of the user’s pupil within the frame overview.

With these and potentially other aspects considered during lens style and fabrication, high-definition glasses lenses use an unmatched degree of customization and may lower or get rid of specific higher-order aberrations.

The precisely made and personalized surfaces of high-definition lenses may help in reducing aberrations that restrict field of vision and cause starbursts, halos and comet-shaped distortions of lights at night.

The outcome is that high-definition lenses may offer sharper image quality, better peripheral vision, enhanced contrast sensitivity and less glare in the evening.

Popular single vision high-definition spectacles lenses include:

• Essilor 360 DS (Essilor of America)
• Hoya NuLux EP (Hoya Vision Care)
• Shamir Autograph II SV (Shamir Insight)
• Clarlet Individual (Carl Zeiss Vision)

Popular progressive high-definition lenses for fixing presbyopia include:

• Hoyalux iD MyStyle (Hoya Vision Care)
• Seiko Supercede (Seiko Optical Products of America)
• Shamir Autograph II (Shamir Insight)
• Varilux Physio DRx (Essilor of America)
• Sola HDV (Carl Zeiss Vision)
• Zeiss Progressive Individual 2 (Carl Zeiss Vision)

Due to the fact that producing high-definition lenses requires additional details beyond what is taped on your eyeglass prescription, your optician generally will take extra measurements when you pick your glasses frames.

In some cases, an exclusive measuring device is used for fitting and producing a particular brand of free-form, high-definition lenses.

One example is the Zeiss i.Terminal 2, a photo-capture system that immediately determines several fitting specifications — consisting of the distance in between the user’s pupils (PD), fitting height, tilt of the frame (pantoscopic angle) and range between the back of the lenses and the front of the eyes (back vertex distance) — to enhance the performance of Carl Zeiss Vision’s Individual brand name of customized high-definition lenses.

Another example is the Visioffice 2 system from Essilor. This second generation, 3D patient measuring device provides eye care experts a precise, exact and constant method to recommend and fit high-definition glasses lenses that are personalized for each patient’s specific visual requirements and frame option, according to the company. The Visioffice 2 likewise features a frame selection module that enables patients to quickly compare how they look using up to 8 different frame designs.

Wavefront Lenses

Some lens producers have actually introduced a lot more customized kind of high-definition eyeglass lenses called wavefront lenses.

Wavefront lenses are created with the aid of the very same sophisticated innovation used to measure the optics of the eye prior to custom-made, wavefront-guided LASIK eye surgery: A computerized instrument jobs consistent light waves into the eye, which show off the retina, and the returning “wavefront” of light is analyzed to assess all optical flaws — not just refractive mistakes, however higher-order aberrations also.

In customized LASIK, these wavefront measurements are used to program the excimer laser to reshape the front surface of the eye. In wavefront spectacles lenses, the measurements own a computer-controlled manufacturing procedure that produces customized, high-definition lenses.

The first brand name of wavefront glasses lenses introduced in the United States was iZon High Resolution Lenses, produced by Ophthonix.

Inning accordance with the company’s site, in simulated nighttime driving tests (55 mph in glare conditions), topics using iZon High Resolution Lenses had the ability to discover, recognize and respond to a pedestrian walking together with the road an average of 20 feet sooner than drivers using standard spectacles lenses.

Besides improving night vision, iZon lenses also helped correct lingering vision problems following LASIK and other refractive eye surgery, the company stated.

However just a minimal number of optometrists and ophthalmologists recommended iZon wavefront lenses, and in October 2012, Ophthonix announced it was stopping operations after 11 years of business.

In 2011, Carl Zeiss Vision presented a brand of wavefront high-definition lenses in the United States called i.Scription by Zeiss. Like iZon lenses, i.Scription by Zeiss lenses are created to correct higher-order aberrations and supply sharper vision than regular eyeglass lenses.

According to the company, i.Scription by Zeiss lenses likewise help users see better in low light conditions and experience improved contrast and color vision.

In order to produce i.Scription by Zeiss wavefront lenses, measurements of your eyes are carried out by your eye care professional with the company’s exclusive i.Profiler Plus — a three-in-one automated device that measures refractive error, corneal topography and higher-order aberrations. Wavefront information gathered by the i.Profiler Plus are then sent to a Zeiss optical lab to produce the personalized high-definition lenses.

Are You A Candidate For High-Definition Lenses?

Practically anyone who uses eyeglasses is a great candidate for high-definition glasses lenses, but people with higher glasses prescriptions might observe greater benefits than people with just mild prescriptions.

Possibly one of the best signs that high-definition glasses lenses might be a good option for you is if your optometrist or ophthalmologist says you have healthy eyes and 20/20 vision, but you are troubled by glare or your vision appears indistinct.

If you are disappointed with the clearness of your vision with your existing glasses, ask your eye care professional if high-definition glasses lenses might supply sharper vision.

Cost Of High-Definition Lenses

Because of the advanced technology used to design and produce free-form and wavefront lenses and the included time and equipment needed to fit them, expect to pay up to 25 to 30 percent more for high-definition glasses lenses, compared with traditional lenses of the very same product and style.

Though high-definition lenses cost more than conventional spectacles lenses, many individuals who try them — especially wearers who’ve been annoyed by an absence of crisp vision with glasses in the past — find free-form and wavefront lenses produce a visible enhancement in clarity and comfort.