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What is free-form technology?(direct surfacing/digital surfacing) |
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Free-form is a technology that makes it possible to produce surfaces of almost any shape given its high surfacing accuracy (the progression area can be adjusted to a precision of 0,01D).
Mathematical formulas which allow such surfacing flexibility are also applied on developing other products like for example plane wings, car bodies, ship hulls and, of course, optical surfaces.
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Free-form technology versus traditional lens manufacturing |
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Free-form technology enables the lab to produce progressive lenses in-house using a simple manufacturing process that will result in value-added lens production.
This ground-breaking technology requires semi-finished single vision lenses on which any kind of surface can be generated and polished later using a minimum number of polishing moulds.
Production efficiency is achieved as semi-finished progressive lenses are replaced by semi-finished single vision lenses, stock maintenance costs are minimized, and obsolescence costs eliminated. Likewise, flexibility will be achieved as the lab will be able to introduce new lens designs simply by upgrading its free-form software.
Higher mark-ups will result as prices are increased given the optical benefits that this high precision surfacing technology offers to the user.
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What is back-side free-form technology? |
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Indo has developed its expertise on back-side (concave) free-form surfacing, given the optical benefits and production simplicity it represents.
Manufacturing a lens with free-form technology on the concave side, increases the user’s field of vision, especially in the intermediate and near zones, as the progressive surface is closer to the eye.
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Who can benefit from free-form technology? |
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Labs will have economic and logistical benefits, and together with optical shops, both can market value added products.
Users will have clear optical benefits which are listed below.
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Which are the optical benefits for users? |
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- Sharper vision given high surfacing precision technology
- Wide near and intermediate vision zones (wider field of vision) as the progressive area is on the concave side of the lens
- More stable vision due to the spherical surface of the convex side of the lens
- Minimized lateral aberrations as a result of applying state-of-the-art lens designs
- Excellent adaptability
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Why Free-form Solutions®? |
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Free-form Solutions® is the full service offered by the best partner to help market value-added products, to radically improve lab progressive lens productivity and get the most out of back-side free-form technology.
Free-form Solutions® proposal includes the following:
- State of the art specialized progressive lens designs
- Full installation and software maintenance
- Onsite and remote professional assistance |
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In which lens designs is Free-form Solutions® available? |
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- Global Designs: multi-purpose progressive addition lens designs available in the following choices:
o Global 22: an extremely soft design, conceived specifically to adapt to the natural way we see things.
o Global 19: the most versatile design with optimized fields of vision.
o Global 16: conceived for the latest trends in fashion.
- Action Designs: Family of specialized progressive lens designs, developed to fulfil different specific customer needs:
o Office Design: conceived for indoor working environments.
o Road Design: conceived for driving.
o Outdoors Design: developed to improve performance when practicing outdoor activities.
- FreeDesign: An ad-hoc development based on the lab’s requirements (further information in the following answer)
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What is FreeDesign? |
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Is a progressive lens design developed based on certain characteristics provided by a lab who will market lenses surfaced with that design in an exclusive way.
Indo’s R&D capability to develop new designs will let labs benefit from the following:
- Differentiation: a unique way of differentiating labs’ own design from the rest.
- Customized development: design development based on the lab’s specifications.
- Exclusive marketing: the lab involved in its developments will be the only one marketing that design.
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Which indices can Free-form Solution®’s designs be surfaced on? |
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All Free-form Solutions®’ designs are available for organic CR39, 1.523, 1.6 MR8, 1.67 MR7, Polycarbonate and Trivex. |
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What about polarized and photochromic lenses? |
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Most of the lenses have the polarized and photochromic properties in a layer on the convex side of the lens. Back-side surfacing processing will cut the lens on the concave side without reaching the outer layer specified above.
For in-mass polarized and photochromic lenses, our designs have been appropriately adjusted. |
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Hardware platforms in which FFS designs can be produced |
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We are compatible with the main platforms such as Satisloh, Schneider and Optotech.
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