The founder of San Francisco-based bespoke eyewear maker Topology, Eric Varady has developed a system to design and engineer custom-made glasses based on the wearer’s unique facial scan.

Now, Topology is partnering with eyecare professionals to deliver advanced virtual try-on in the optical—or remotely for patients at home—with 3D digital optical measurements, far expanding ECPs’ capabilities in the optical and beyond.

Here, Varady unpacks the background on Topology and its focus on helping ECPs build their bottom line.

EB: How was Topology founded?

ERIC VARADY: Topology was founded with a very simple realization: It’s really hard to find your perfect pair of glasses—eyewear that looks exactly the way you want it to, fits your face like a glove, and is comfortable throughout the day. This is why the best opticians in this industry can seem like divine magicians.

Topology started with the question of whether, with the proper application of technology, we could give these master opticians a set of capabilities they never had before in order to reach new levels of their craft, as well as provide junior opticians a way to come up the curve faster.

EB: How did you develop this vision?

EV: The first way we did this was to build a kit of technology around custom-tailored eyeglasses—based on a 3D scan of your face, an optician could design the perfect frames that would be built from raw materials to perfectly fit you and only you.

However, our custom product is limited to the premium segment of the market, so working with our retail partners we decided to next apply our technology to branded ready-to-wear eyewear. It turns out that the algorithms that we previously developed for custom eyewear were well-suited to the world of stock eyewear in new and exciting ways.

They can power filtering tools that assess how well each pair of stock eyewear can fit a customer’s face. They can determine where a given eyewear style should sit on a given face. They can also deliver optical centration lens measurements to enable dispensing of even the most complicated Rxs. And they can provide instructions to an optician on how to professionally adjust a frame to fit a customer's face.

EB: How does your technology provide a full facial scan?

EV: Apple did the world an amazing service with the intro of its Face ID sensor now common on all iPhones and iPad Pros sold over the past three years. What used to be 3D scanning hardware the size of a refrigerator at a cost of $75K is now a camera sensor that's in everyone's pocket.

It shines a grid of 30,000 invisible dots on your face, and then reads how those dots deform to your own facial contours in order to construct a sub-millimeter-accurate 3D face scan.

EB: How does Topology help ECPs build profitability?

EV: It increases an ECPs’ sales in four main ways: faster visits, higher capture rates, more-effective sales support for higher-margin lens products, and increased multipairing. What we hear from ECPs across the country is that there’s no shortage of demand now, but there is a challenge with patient access. Faster visits mean more sales in a day. It’s about reducing the friction in optical commerce.

EB: How can Topology’s programs help ECPs in today’s challenging world?

EV: Topology can help by making in-store experiences safer and more efficient if customers can more quickly find the frames they’re looking for, narrow down their selection on screen before physically touching frames, and avoid the second visit in the store.

This is to say nothing of the safety benefits of allowing the optician and the patient to keep their masks on while browsing frames and to allow the optician to social distance—even when taking measurements.

For more of Varady’s valuable insights on how the Topology platform serves ECPs’ unique needs today, click here.