A CAD-CAM integration environment in the fabrication process of ophthalmic lenses

The demand for lenses with complex geometries, induced by the growing functional requirements of the modern ophthalmic industry, drove the introduction of CNC machines in glass manufacturing. The almost prototypal nature and the special kinematics of these CNC machines highlight the drawbacks of the existing management and NC programming software tools: an effective integration between the geometric modeling and the manufacturing environments is still lacking. Aim of the present work is to describe the concept and the development of an integrated environment intended for the NC programming and simulation of grinding and polishing operations of glass moulds for ophthalmic lenses. Starting from the analysis of the problems cited above, the design specifications of the integrated environment have been identified and consequently also the structure of code and user interface. Finally, some special functions of the software have been showed by means of practical examples. The proposed environment, named “V_lens”, in addition to the CNC programming and simulation features, allows also the modification of geometrical models and should be regarded as a first attempt in the development of a fully featured software tool for the integrated management of design, manufacturing and verification of ophthalmic lenses.