Medicine: Your Multifocal Glasses Are All Set for a Revolution

November 10, 2015

Wearers of multifocals (“progressive” eyeglasses) must look through the top of the lenses for distance, through the middle for intermediate distance and through the bottom for close reading. Many people find it hard to adjust to the limited field of view per distance and even get headaches from the distortions.

If your progressive glasses could let you see about two years into the future, you’d notice an alternative on the horizon: Omnifocals from the Israeli company DeepOptics. Already in development for three years, Omnifocals are positioned to be the first dynamic focal eyeglass lenses ever created.

They will consist of two layers: a regular static lens for far vision and a pixelated dynamic liquid-crystal lens for near and intermediate vision. This electronic pixelated lens constantly changes its optical power to adjust viewing distance based on data processed right in the frame from two hidden sensors tracking the wearer’s line of sight.

The electronic lens will cover most of the field of view of the eyeglasses to enable sharp vision of both near and far objects through any part of the lens. Millions of middle-aged eyeglass wearers will no longer have to tilt their heads up or down to see properly.

If you like this idea, you’re not alone. DeepOptics won the startup competition at the sixth annual Israel Machine Vision Conference in Tel Aviv last March, spurring the interest of potential investors and partners including manufacturers of optics for eyeglasses as well as virtual- and augmented-reality goggles.

Cofounder and CEO Yariv Haddad explains that there are several approaches to implementing liquid crystal into lenses, but DeepOptics took a revolutionary approach, developing and patenting a method using a pixelated array. This approach offers several advantages, including the ability to change the eyeglasses’ prescription without the need for new lenses.

Source: By Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel21c

Source: Excerpt of article reprinted with permission, ISRAEL21c, www.Israel21c.org