Setting Up Device Interfaces For Digital Surfacing

Setting Up Device Interfaces

There are 4 types of devices that are used in the production of digital surface lenses:

Surface Blockers - When information is sent to a surface blocker for a digital surface job, the cylinder axis (GAX) will always be sent as 0.  This is because a standard SV lens blank is used, and because everything is ground onto the back surface of the lens, there is no need to align the cylinder axis with anything on the front (in a traditional progressive, the front of the lens must be aligned and then the cylinder axis marked relative to that).  Data for a digital progressive to be manufactured on a SV blank can be sent to the blocker either as a progressive lens, or as a SV lens.  The default it to send it as a progressive – to tell Rx-Universe to send the lens as a SV lens to the blocker, check the following box:

Generator - to cut a digital surface design, a compatible generator must be used.  Most of the differences in the interface are handled automatically by OMICS, based on the job itself being a freeform job (ie. using a lens style which has a freeform type associated with it).  However, since a digital surfacing generator is also a true cut-to-polish, that fact needs to be identified in the device configuration screen, by checking the “Cut to polish” flag:

Note that, since the topography files produced by the digital surfacing calculations are stored on the LMS network, the generator must also be connected to this network so that it can locate the files.

Polisher - since a true cut-to-polish generator is used, traditional fining is not done on lenses produced on this generator.  However, the information sent to the polisher varies from a traditional job.  An entry for the interface to the polisher must be set up similar to the following:

The setting of the “Special Device Modifier” to “IFLX” indicates to Rx-Universe to send different information to the polisher for some fields (for example, cylinder axis).

Laser Engraver – see section 6.0 for a discussion of the options for interfacing a laser engraver or click here