Spanish ophthalmic technology company IOT says it has become the first to 3D print personalized progressive lenses, using a method it calls Light-Form Technology. The company says a complete lens is formed from a single flash of light in a few seconds, and that lenses produced this way are already on sale to consumers.
The approach departs from both conventional surfacing and established additive manufacturing for optics. There is no layer-by-layer build, and the lens skips the generating and polishing steps on which conventional lens production depends.
A single exposure instead of a layer stack
Light-Form is based on stabilized frontal photopolymerization. Rather than shaping a lens gradually from a blank, the process cures the entire volume of the lens in one pass; IOT says the 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 finished lens is mapped.
IOT argues that any new production method for personalized progressive lenses must reproduce the intended optical design precisely, not merely produce a recognizable shape. The company says Light-Form combines the design freedom of digital manufacturing with those demanding optical requirements, so that additive manufacturing can deliver prescription lenses at commercial optical quality, and adds that the method opens more options for future lens architectures and individualized solutions.
Co-founder and CINO José Alonso said Light-Form shows how scientific research can change the way ophthalmic lenses are made, adding 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 a rethink of where lenses are made
IOT presents the method as lighter on resources than traditional lens production. Compared with conventional processes, it says Light-Form 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.
The technology is also framed as a way to redesign the production chain rather than simply a faster forming step. Larger installations could use several printing heads to raise output without taking up much floor space. Further ahead, IOT envisages compact machines making custom lenses inside optical stores, placing production next to the customer and reducing the need to hold stock.
COO Carolina Gago 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 said the company is working to translate these capabilities into practical manufacturing options.
For optical laboratories, that could mean organizing capacity around demand in their own area instead of relying only 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 and earlier optical printing projects
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 custom optical shapes could eventually be useful in virtual reality. These remain development options rather than products.
Earlier projects have pursued adjacent ground. Luxexcel built prescription lenses layer by layer in a material jetting process, an alternative to the roughly 30-step conventional route that requires large inventories and yields high wastage; its platform could print single vision, freeform and multifocal progressive designs, and it embedded waveguides into prescription lenses for smart glasses. Meta later acquired Luxexcel as part of its AR technology efforts. More recently, a team at the University of Waterloo developed a system that 3D prints custom contact lenses in roughly 20 minutes, work that earned a Gold Medal at the Shanghai International Exhibition of Inventions in June 2026.
Those projects show additive manufacturing moving into optical production. IOT's distinction, according to the company, is that its personalized progressive lenses are already reaching consumers.