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Comment by bagrow | Hacker News Reader

Any chance of 3D-printing lenses? Frames seem easy, but being able to automate lens creation may be able to bypass these big monopolies.

Whatever happened to these water-filled lenses? https://gizmodo.com/5116969/eyeglasses-with-fluid-filled-sac... (2008)

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It's already being done, using very interesting technology. The printers are attached to multi-ton blocks of granite (IIRC) to counter vibrations.

They're used to print out uncommon spectacle glasses. Several in use in North America.

https://www.luxexcel.com/ophthalmic-technology

It seems to me that approximately everyone on the planet sees mass media with people wearing ordinary glasses and will want to wear those instead of bulky silicone-filled lenses, even if it costs more. We're already willing to pay hundreds of dollars on name-brand frames- it's not because you can't find cheaper ones.

The article was talking about folks who are far too poor to afford a few hundred dollars to drop on glasses.

I mean, people who can afford basic frames pay more for nicer ones.

Quite poor people, if they get the chance, will probably pay for very-cheap real glasses even if there are even-cheaper silicone ones available. For people with no other choices, I can see the silicone ones being useful! But "hey, take these glasses we made for poor people" is not a great sales pitch.

The article also says a cheap pair of glasses is $5.

You can get perfectly fine, durable, non-dorky plastic frames for $10.

Any chance of 3D-printing lenses?

Yes, it's called "grinding", it's how all lenses used to be made. For like, 500 years.

Next up: can we make lenses on the blockchain?

I suspect a lot of the polymer lenses are cast to a rough shape and then ground/polished a relatively small amount to reach the final dimension.

Subtractive manufacturing is not the same as additive manufacturing.

Formlabs has demoed a 3d printed camera lens, but it's a far cry from the optical quality of eyeglasses. https://formlabs.com/blog/creating-camera-lenses-with-stereo...

Who does the grinding? How many people in third world countries have access to trained and equipped lensmakers?

I’m sad about all your hate. I thought posters to HN were more insightful that this.

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