Spanish ophthalmic technology company IOT says it has become the first to 3D print personalized progressive lenses, using a process that forms a complete lens from a single flash of light in a few seconds. According to the company, lenses produced this way are already on sale to consumers.
The method, called Light-Form, does not build a lens layer by layer. It also skips the generating and polishing steps that conventional surfacing depends on, reducing the shaping stage to a brief exposure rather than a sequence of mechanical operations.
How the process works
Light-Form is based on stabilized frontal photopolymerization. Instead of curing a blank gradually, the process exposes the entire volume of the lens in one pass, and that forming stage takes seconds. Several finishing steps 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 route for personalized progressive lenses must reproduce the intended optical design precisely, not merely produce a recognizable shape. The company says its process combines the design freedom of digital manufacturing with those demanding optical requirements, allowing additive manufacturing to reach commercial optical quality, and that it widens the options for future lens architectures and individualized solutions.
José Alonso, co-founder and CINO of IOT, said Light-Form demonstrates how scientific research can change the way ophthalmic lenses are made. He added 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.
Resource claims and production footprint
IOT says the method is much 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 states that these figures cover the manufacturing stage only.
Beyond forming speed, IOT presents Light-Form as a way to redesign the production chain. Larger installations could use several printing heads to increase output without taking up much floor space, while further ahead the company sees compact machines making custom lenses inside optical stores. That would put production next to the customer and cut 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 and compact equipment potentially supporting production closer to consumers. She said the company is working to translate these capabilities into practical manufacturing options.
For optical laboratories, the proposition is to organize capacity around demand in their own area instead of relying only on centralized surfacing equipment. For wearers, IOT describes the long-term benefit as faster access to lenses made for them. The company says optical partners would still play the central role in vision correction and customer service.
Smart glasses on the development roadmap
IOT is also looking beyond conventional spectacles. One option under development is printing prescription optics directly onto 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 takes aim at conventional lens production
Conventional prescription lenses tend to be manufactured through a process of roughly 30 steps, which requires large inventories and yields high wastage. Luxexcel was an early example in prescription eyewear: rather than surfacing, it built lenses layer by layer in a material jetting process, and its platform could print single vision and freeform lenses as well as multifocal progressive designs. The company also embedded waveguides into prescription lenses for smart glasses — the same direction IOT is now exploring. Meta later acquired Luxexcel 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 walk out wearing it after a single clinic visit. The work earned a Gold Medal at the Shanghai International Exhibition of Inventions in June 2026.
Together, these projects show additive manufacturing moving into optical production. IOT says its personalized progressive lenses are already reaching consumers.