ZEISS to license CREAL’s technology to create a digital vision care platform
CREAL today announces a license agreement with ZEISS with the aim to create a digitized vision care platform that hopes to revolutionize the current vision diagnostic and treatment procedures. By leveraging CREAL’s light field display technology, ZEISS will bring to market devices that allow for the digital examination of eye conditions as well as virtual simulation of classic ophthalmic lenses, contact lenses, and the like. Ultimately, the partnership should help bring century-old vision test procedures into the 21st century, finally enabling fast, cost-effective and above all user-friendly diagnostic procedures.
Many of today’s refraction tests are time-consuming, costly and can even seem intimidating. Manual and lens-based, they rely on outdated technology. As well as all eye care practitioners, these constraints affect a great part of the population. For instance, more than two-thirds of the population in the US wear glasses or contacts1, while myopia is constantly growing and is expected to affect 50% of the global population by 20502. The need for intuitive, accurate, effective, and cost-efficient vision tests and diagnosis is therefore only to become even more crucial.
Through the integration of CREAL’s light field display into vision test devices, ZEISS expects to introduce a groundbreaking solution allowing for precise digital diagnosis of eye defects. By replicating real-world light to provide digital imagery with genuine depth, CREAL’s true 3D display will enable the digital replication of any physical or theoretical lens, allow test procedures to be tailored to any age group/customer segment, as well as enable the projection of automated content, limiting the need for clinical resources overall.
“As the pioneer of scientific optics, ZEISS’ mission has always been to challenge the limits of human imagination,” says Antia Alonso Ph.D., Vice President of Zeiss Vision Technology Solutions. “We see our collaboration with CREAL and the consequent development and rollout of our digitized vision care platform as a way to revolutionize the prescription eyewear customer buying experience, elements of which still rely on antiquated technology, developed over a century ago.”
Looking ahead, the synergy between ZEISS’ expertise in vision care and eyewear, and CREAL’s cutting-edge advancements in display technology could help accelerate the development of vision-health and vision enhancement enterprise in all its forms, both real and virtual.
1 “The Consumer inSights Q1 2002 report”, The Vision Council’s
2 Padmaja Sankaridurg, et al, ”Impact of Myopia,” ARVO Journals, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Vol.62, 2, April 2021