GLASS
GLASS LENSES: NEW PRODUCTS GUIDE
Learn about the latest high-tech glass lens products available today. Thinner, lighter, more durable—and completely covetable.
CORNING
Corning Inc. introduces Corning® Clear 15 glass, a new high-performance glass lens. Due to a proprietary molecular structure that undergoes an ion-exchange process, this new lens provides a thinner and more scratch-resistant solution compared with plastic materials commonly used for prescription lenses.
Corning Clear 15 glass is a standard-index glass available as thin as 1.5mm. Its high Abbe value results in better vision and optical clarity. What’s more, Corning Clear 15’s high chemical durability makes it more immune than plastic to household solvents or common cleaning formulas often used to clean lenses.
INFO: 813-758-1065, ophthalmic@corning.com, corning.com/specialtyglass
FEA INDUSTRIES
Eagle™ Lenses is a family of more than a dozen full-backside, free-form lens designs. The entire portfolio features designs focused on everyday wear—from sports to computer use and everything in between.
These lens designs are now available in Eagle Thin & Clear Lenses Plus Corning™, allowing them to be up to 25% thinner and lighter than regular glass. This results in a lighter lens that still has superior optics as well as scratch and chemical resistance. Eagle lenses are also available in a variety of other glass colors, making them ideal for high-end glass sunwear, where large frames can present problems for decentration of progressive lenses.
INFO: 800-327-2002, feaind.com
LUZERNE OPTICAL
Luzerne Optical Laboratories is now offering two of its proprietary designs in Corning® Clear 15 glass material. CrownView and CrownView SV were the first premium digital free-form progressive and single-vision lenses available in glass.
CrownView features a soft progressive design with smooth power changes for easier adaptation and comfort. It offers a low minimum fitting height to accommodate smaller frames to decrease weight. CrownView SV is available in an aspheric/atoric design.
Corning Clear 15 material helps provide a thinner lens, a high Abbe value, and a high chemical durability.
INFO: 800-233-9637, luzerneoptical.com
MH OPTICAL
MHO Partner labs—MH Optical Suppliers, NJ; New Hampshire Optical, NH, and Pelican Optical, FL—are offering both a clear and a photochromic glass material in their new iForm Lenses Plus Corning™ free-form lens design. These precision glass lenses have a high Abbe value for superior clarity, and they are ground 25% thinner than regular glass lenses for both a thin profile and a lighter glass footprint. Whether in clear or photochromic, they deliver the superior scratch resistance that only glass offers.
INFO: 800-445-3090, mhoptical.com
SERENGETI
Serengeti is introducing the “Slim Collection” for 2016, a new subset of the brand’s popular Classics series. The three stylish models in the series—Rappallo, Ostuni, and Positano—pair the brand’s renowned ultra-light mineral glass lenses, featuring photochromic and Spectral Control technologies, with minimalist Grilamid TR90 frames fitted with hidden spring hinges. The result is a selection of comfortable, fashionable sunglasses with industry-leading optical quality.
INFO: 800-222-6553, serengeti-eyewear.com
VISION DYNAMICS
Visions Dynamics Laboratory offers crystalCLEAR™ digital glass with Plus Corning™ technology, which provides advanced prescription accuracy, exceptional optical clarity, and optimized center thickness. Manufactured using a special ion-exchange process, crystalCLEAR with Plus Corning Specialty Glass is thin, light, and strong.
Suitable for the majority of prescriptions, crystalCLEAR digital glass is available in clear and photochromic. Vision Dynamics Lab is an authorized distributor for all major glass lens manufacturers and provides a full-service option for glass needs.
INFO: 888-900-5503, visdynlab.com
UNIQUE LENSES. UNIQUE RX PROCESSING.
An inside look at the exceptional way Corning’s new glass lenses are processed in the lab
Corning’s new ion-exchange glass product is unique—and requires special treatment in the lab setting when processing it for prescriptions. The process is different from that used for other lens materials (and even normal glass lens fabrication). How is it different?
FREE-FORM IS THE WAY
Corning’s new specialty glass lenses are processed on free-form surfacing equipment that is specifically dedicated to glass orders.
Free-form surfacing equipment consists of a diamond-point lathe cutter. This is a carving tool that is directed by a software program to sculpt the Rx on the back surface—or even both the front and back surfaces—of a semi-finished blank.
“Free-form glass surfacing is certainly easier than traditional surfacing,” says Bill Heffner, IT & marketing director with FEA Industries, Inc., a wholesale lab in Morton, PA. “Free-form surfacing doesn’t require us to use lap tools for the fining and polishing process. Indeed, there’s no fining at all for glass now with digital surfacing methods—we simply cut and then polish the lenses.”
MORE OPTIONS THAN EVER
At the family-owned FEA Industries, Inc.—as well as at other wholesale labs that have partnered with Corning—many free-form designs can be produced in Corning’s ion-exchange glass lenses.
“Fabricating these lenses in the laboratory is a different process than producing plastic-based free-form lenses, though,” notes Heffner. “We use specialized machines for cutting, polishing, and engraving glass lenses.”
This specialization, however, is opening up the door to more and more designs for glass. Having dedicated equipment for glass allows wholesale labs to have complete control over the lens surface, making it possible to do free-form designs in glass. Even dual-sided PALs are now possible.
And, having the ability to produce many free-form designs in this new glass material opens up additional opportunities for providing patients with the contemporary designs they want or need, in a material that will provide them superior optics.
—Jenean Carlton, ABOC, NCLE
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