Change of view (2001)

[Image changes to show an eye testing machine]

Narrator: This man’s eyes are being tested for errors in his long distance vision. As he gets older however, he will probably develop ‘presbyopia’, the gradual, age related loss of the ability to see clearly at short distances.

[Image changes to show a man having his eyes tested then camera zooms in to show screen with text ‘PEDZF’. Image changes to show the man with the optometrist]

It used to mean two pairs of glasses, one for reading and one for long distance. The problem was solved with bifocals but the solution wasn’t perfect.

[Image changes to show people walking in a mall]

[Image changes to show the interior of an optometrist’s shop and then to woman selecting glasses]

[Image changes to show Dr Tony Miller]

Dr Tony Miller: In a bifocal lens you have a sudden transition. So that people have to jump from distance vision to near vision and that causes a sudden change in magnification. It causes a jump in their direction of vision.

[Image changes to show factory manufacturing multifocal lens. Images flash of the lens on a conveyor belt then being checked and polished. Image closes in on Dr. Tony Miller holding the multifocal lens]

Narrator: In the late 1970s, a new kind of multifocal lens was developed and the Australian based company SOLA International came up with their progressive multifocal lens, which provided a gradual transition between the correction for both distance and near vision.

[Image changes to show Dr. Tony Miller and the optometrist looking at an image of an eye on a computer screen. Camera zooms in on the computer screen display and then pans out again to show Dr. Tony Miller]

It’s all to do with the shape or curvature of the lens. Near vision needs a steeper curve than distance vision. And this is where the mathematical expertise of Dr. Tony Miller, from the Australian science agency CSIRO, came in to further develop the concept.

[Image has changed back to Dr Miller]

Dr Tony Miller: Basically what we’ve done is we have designed surfaces which have particular changes of curvature and what I’ve been able to do is to come up with some efficient mathematical ways in which to do that.

[Image changes back to the optometry store with the woman selecting a pair of glasses. Images flash back through Dr. Tony Miller at his screen, the manufacturing factory, the optometry store and then the image fades and resolves into a pair of glasses]

Narrator: More than 100 million people around the world now wear SOLA’s progressive multifocal lenses and CSIRO’s Dr Tony Miller is continuing to develop software tools to allow SOLA to develop better progressive glasses, reducing the time necessary to perfect and design new types of lens products.

[Music plays and text appears sci files]