Digital Surfacing

Owned by Tony LeBlanc
Last updated: Mar 28, 2019
2 min read

Overview

Digital (also called Direct) Surfacing refers to the manufacturing process by which an atoric design is ground onto the back surface of a standard semi-finished lens blank.  This could be a progressive curve ground onto the back of a SFSV blank, or an atoric surface ground into the back of a semi-finished progressive blank to optimize the design for the patient, or some other combination of curves.

Processing digital surface designs in a lab involves the use of a Digital Surfacing (or Lens Design System, herein called the LDS) calculation program, provided by the LDS vendor, and equipment specially designed to cut these surfaces into a lens, both of which must interface with the lab management software (LMS) used by the lab. 

The LDS replaces the traditional surfacing calculations done by the LMS, and also provides additional information needed for DS jobs.  Communication between the LMS and the LDS is done by means of communication packets, either in the form of LDS and LMS files (as described in the VCA DCS documents) or as communication packets through a web service which contain the same data as the LDS and LMS files.

In one model, the digital surfacing calculation software (the LDS from the lens vendor) runs on a PC on the lab's network, accepts files in VCA format from the LMS describing the job to be processed, and returns both a result file, for use by the LMS, as well as a surface map file (SDF) for use by the DS manufacturing equipment.  The DS manufacturing equipment typically includes a generator, a polisher, and a laser engraver, all of which are connected to the LMS, and to the network using a network connection (to retrieve the SDF files).

As a result of the additional interfaces, there are additional steps required to configure Rx-Universe to process digital surfacing jobs:

  • Specify calculation interface(s)
  • Set up digital surfacing lens styles
  • Set up base curve selection for digital surfacing lens styles
  • Configure VCA Label Tables if necessary for interface-specific requirements
  • Configure device interface for digital surfacing equipment
  • Configure device interfaces for DS equipment