Spanish ophthalmic technology company IOT says it is the first to 3D print personalized progressive lenses, using a method it calls Light-Form Technology that forms a complete lens from a single flash of light in a few seconds. According to the company, lenses made this way are already on sale to consumers.
The approach differs from both conventional lens surfacing and from layer-by-layer additive manufacturing. Rather than building a lens gradually or grinding and polishing a blank, Light-Form cures the full volume of the lens in one pass, and the finished lens skips the generating and polishing steps that conventional surfacing depends on.
Forming and finishing
The process is based on stabilized frontal photopolymerization: light cures the whole volume of the lens at once instead of shaping it step by step from a blank, and that forming stage takes seconds. Several finishing steps still follow before a lens is complete. Unused resin is recovered to limit waste, the surface is hardened, and the lens is mapped.
IOT argues that any new production method for personalized progressive lenses has to reproduce the intended optical design precisely, not merely produce a recognizable shape. The company says Light-Form pairs the design freedom of digital manufacturing with these demanding optical requirements, allowing additive manufacturing to deliver prescription lenses at commercial optical quality, and that it opens up more options for future lens architectures and individualized solutions.
Resource use and production footprint
IOT says the method is considerably lighter on resources than traditional lens production. Compared with conventional methods, it uses no water in manufacturing, needs 90% less energy and produces 76% less waste. The company notes that these figures cover the manufacturing stage only.
José Alonso, co-founder and CINO of IOT, said the technology shows how scientific research can change the way ophthalmic lenses are made, and that pairing optical precision with a new production method could help optical partners create personalized products, try out new lens architectures and run more flexible manufacturing.
Rethinking where lenses are made
IOT frames the technology as a way to redesign the production chain rather than simply a faster forming step. Larger installations could run several printing heads to raise output without consuming much floor space. Further ahead, the company envisages compact machines making custom lenses inside optical stores, putting production next to the customer and reducing the need to hold stock.
Carolina Gago, COO of IOT, said the value lies in rethinking the production workflow, with resin recovery and lower water and energy requirements addressing how resources are used, while compact equipment could support production closer to consumers. She added that the company is working to translate these capabilities into practical manufacturing options.
For optical laboratories, that could mean organizing capacity around local demand instead of relying solely on centralized surfacing equipment. For wearers, IOT says the long-term benefit is faster access to lenses made for them, while optical partners would still play the central role in vision correction and customer service.
Smart glasses on the roadmap
IOT is also looking beyond conventional spectacles. One option under development is printing prescription optics directly onto the waveguides and flat substrates used in smart glasses and augmented reality headsets, which the company says could make such devices thinner and lighter. It also suggests that custom optical shapes could eventually be useful in virtual reality.
Additive manufacturing in optical production
Other projects in the 3D printing sector also use digital manufacturing to make vision correction more personalized and on demand. Luxexcel was an early example in prescription eyewear: instead of a conventional process of roughly 30 steps that requires large inventories and yields high wastage, it built lenses layer by layer in a material jetting process, printing single vision, freeform and multifocal progressive designs and embedding waveguides into prescription lenses for smart glasses. Meta later acquired the company as part of its AR technology efforts.
More recently the approach has moved into point-of-care contact lenses. A team at the University of Waterloo has developed a system that 3D prints custom contact lenses in roughly 20 minutes, raising the prospect that a patient could be measured, have a lens designed and leave a clinic wearing it after a single visit. The work earned a Gold Medal at the Shanghai International Exhibition of Inventions in June 2026.
IOT says its Light-Form personalized progressive lenses are already reaching consumers, presenting the process as a change to how lens production is organized rather than only a new way to form lenses.