New One-Size-Fits-All glasses?

[JBeukema]

Tired of having to find the right person's glasses to steal when yours break?

Well those days might be over.

Zeev Zalevsky at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, has developed a technique to turn a standard lens into one that perfectly focuses light from anything between 33 centimetres away and the horizon.
It involves engraving the surface of a standard lens with a grid of 25 near-circular structures each 2 millimetres across and containing two concentric rings. The engraved rings are just a few hundred micrometres wide and a micrometre deep. "The exact number and size of the sets will change from one lens to another," depending on its size and shape, says Zalevsky.
The rings shift the phase of the light waves passing through the lens, leading to patterns of both constructive and destructive interference. Using a computer model to calculate how changes in the diameter and position of the rings alter the pattern, Zalevsky came up with a design that creates a channel of constructive interference perpendicular to the lens through each of the 25 structures. Within these channels, light from both near and distant objects is in perfect focus.
"It results in an axial channel of focused light, not a single focal spot," Zalevsky says. "If the retina is positioned anywhere along this channel, it will always see objects in focus."

Scratched glasses give perfect vision for any eyesight - tech - 04 October 2010 - New Scientist


I'm not a big math and optics person, and it says there's a catch, but still, this could hold promise.

 

[uscitizen]

Ahh this must be a spinoff of the new optics in cameras that do the same thing. everything from a few ft to infinity in perfect focus. Inimaginable depth of view. Neato stuff.

 

[Madeline]

Would this eliminate depth perception, JB? I'm not certain I grasp it very well.

Sounds like a way cool invention, though.

 

[JBeukema]

Would this eliminate depth perception, JB? I'm not certain I grasp it very well.

Sounds like a way cool invention, though.

Well, I know jack about optics, but from what I understand of the brain, depth perception is achieved by the brain's analyzing the differences in the two images coming from the eyes. Just like some 3D TVs that display different images to each eye, this shouldn't effect depth perception.

If anything, an increase in resolution should improve depth perception in those with imperfect eyesight.

 

[Tank]

Would this eliminate depth perception, JB? I'm not certain I grasp it very well.

Sounds like a way cool invention, though.

Make sure they come in rose colored for you.

 

[uscitizen]

Sounds like the combined fresnel and standard lens designs?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Saw a piece on some new glasses designed here in the US. They are adjustable so that you can focus on anything near or far just by adjusting the lenses. The fashion conscious won't like them they have only one shape due to the nature of the required adjustments.

 

[JBeukema]

If manufacturing costs are reasonable, being able to provide one set of glasses for almost everyone would make it a lot easier to provide glasses to children in low-income families.