We at Focus West Optometry take pride in bringing our clients the latest in contact lenses and prescription glasses. The next time you’re visiting your optometrist for eye exams or any other eye care in the Calgary area, be sure to ask about the advantages of digital lenses. They may just improve your vision more than your current pair of glasses is able to.
What makes digital lenses different?
Digital lenses are essentially a more precise way of shaping lenses to make them more specifically tailored to an individual’s eyes. Rather than the lenses themselves being “digital” in some way, the word refers to the high-tech way in which they were produced.
Glasses these days are, of course, not usually made of glass like you have in the windows of your home. No one wants sharp shards of glass near their eyes if an accident happens. Rather, most glasses today are made of some kind of plastic. Different plastics are used depending on what eye care goal they need to achieve. Digital lenses are a way of using computer controlled surfacing equipment to shape the plastic to correct your eyesight more exactly and with fewer distortions. The people who make your lenses just need to input into a computer the precise measurements of your eye problems taken by your optometrist in Calgary and out come the exact lenses for your problem.
What are digital lenses good for?
The greater precision offered by computer controlled shaping of lenses means that more eye problems can be corrected with great efficiency and with fewer added problems, like glare or “fishbowling” (when the outside edges of your glasses are distorted). With simple, common problems like near- or farsightedness, regular glasses can usually do the trick. There are, however, higher-order eyesight problems (spherical aberration, trefoil, etc.) that regular glasses have difficulty correcting. The greater precision of digital lenses makes even these more complicated and subtle problems easy to fix.
Perhaps one of the most common examples of digital lenses is the progressive lens, which is quickly replacing the bifocal. Bifocals, of course, are glasses with two different curves that allow you to see well at two different distances. Rather than the sharp line that betrays the point where one curve stops and another begins, progressive lenses slowly grade from one curve to another, allowing viewers to see a range of different distances seamlessly.
At Focus West Optometry, we want to help you find the solution that’s right for your vision. If you need eye exams, contact lenses, or prescription glasses in the Calgary area, contact us today to set up an appointment.
