Standard Progressive Lenses 

Traditional methods and approaches to improve aberrations have coherently led to diminishing quality of other lens properties. The usual result of those optimizing techniques were the reduction of surface astigmatism, but only at the expense of a smaller progression channel and near visual field. The aberration zones were optimized and improved, but the main attributes of the progressive lens were compromised.

Aberrations: The challenge of all progressive lenses

The optical performance of all progressive lenses is subjective and depends on the wearer‘s needs and personal visualsystem. However, there is one universal key factor that has a major effect on the lens performance: the amount and placement of unwanted aberrations.

In general, aberrations cause the image formed by a lens to be blurry or unsharp. Those aberration zones are located at the lateral region of the lens close to the progression corridor and near visual zone, which compromise peripheral vision. Wearers usually experience aberrations as levels of blur or swim effect which can cause feeling nauseous or dizzy and negatively affects the wearer’s adaptation. Unfortunately, these image distortions are general properties of progressive lenses and are inevitable. Correlation between the wearer’s prescribed addition power and aberrations is defined by physics and elaborated by Minkwitz Theorem. According to Günter Minkwitz, aberrations, also called surface astigmatism, change twice as quickly as the rate of change of power progression. Therefore, modern technology can only find ways to optimize this ratio.