Always at the forefront of ophthalmic lens technology
23rd MAFO – The Conference successfully concluded
On February 7, MAFO – The Conference once again brought together more than 90 ophthalmic lens experts and 15 speakers from all over the world. As usual, one day before Mido in Milan, representatives from lens manufacturers, the machine industry and lens development met and took advantage of the unique opportunity for an intensive exchange with industry experts.
The thematic highlights this year were autofocus spectacle lenses, cosmetic inspection, light-field displays for smart glasses and subjective refraction, myopia management lenses and much more. Another highlight and the conclusion of the exciting day was the panel discussion on the topic: “The optical lab in a smart world”.
Readers can find a comprehensive review of the event in the upcoming MAFO issue 02/2025.
MAFO – The Conference offers a unique opportunity in Europe to exchange ideas with like-minded people in the ophthalmic lens industry and to stay informed about all the latest trends and developments.
The next MAFO – The Conference will take place on January 30, 2026. As always, one day before Mido at the exhibition center in Milan.
We also like to thank all participants, speakers, panelists and our Chairman Peter Baumbach for their great contribution to shape the 23rd edition of this special event for the lens industry.
The MAFO – Team
Thanks to our 2025 Speakers
Tomas Sluka- François Van Lishout
- Eduardo Pascuale
- Hua Qi
- Koji Abe
- Miho Uechi
- Joanna Zhang
- Xavier Bultez
- Jessica Jarosz
- Bruno Berge
- Pau ArtĂşs
- André Durow
- Marcel Mahner
- Jamal El-Hindi
- Wolfgang Becken
- Panel Discussion
2025 Topics
Dr. Tomas Sluka
CREAL
The traditional eyewear industry relies on conventional lenses for both fitting and vision correction, often limiting precision and customer experience. Light-field technology is poised to transform this process into a fully digital solution. During the fitting phase, light-field displays enable more efficient and automated refraction tests, including immersive lens demonstrations in tailored virtual environments, offering a more accurate, personalized, and enjoyable experience. The same technology powers smart eyewear, uniquely delivering natural focus depth and uncompromised prescription correction, seamlessly merging digital and physical worlds. By integrating vision care directly into the eyewear, light-field technology bridges the gap between traditional methods and the future of smart eyewear. This talk will explain how light-field technology works and its practical applications in the eyewear industry.
Dr. François Van Lishout
Automation & Robotics
Eduardo Pascual
IOT
To move toward a smart world, we must continue to develop smart labs. Automating cosmetic inspection is a key step in this evolution for the ophthalmic industry. A&R, in collaboration with IOT, has developed an innovative solution that integrates cosmetic inspection with traditional lens quality control, creating a fully comprehensive system.
From theory to practice, we will share insights from our pilot projects, illustrating how this solution improves efficiency and consistency.
Intelligent methods of image analysis and data processing are crucial for enabling precise and automated lens inspection, facilitating the transition to smart manufacturing in optical labs
Dr. Hua Qi
Hoya Vision Care
Novel spectacle lens with micro lens array on its surface has been reported to have comparable efficacy to other pharmacological treatments for myopia control in children. Besides its myopia control efficacy, its optical performance is another important property. The single value of PSF and MTF are not sufficient to assess this lens because they may vary drastically from one position to another on the lens. When turning the head or rotating the eyes, the wearer may feel unexpected flickers that do not appear wearing other spectacle lenses.
At each position on lens, two new indices, local light intensity (LLI) and local target shift (LTS) seeing through the position, are defined and calculated. Traditional MTF is examined under the condition that within the pupil there are several micro lenses. The value of MTF of any spatial frequency varies with the azimuth angle. The mean MTF (MMTF) and the maximum difference of MTF(DMTF) among all azimuth angles are used to represent the situation seeing through the position. All these indices, LLI, LTS, MMTF and DMTF are mapped across the lens. These maps represent the optical performance of the novel spectacle lens.
Koji Abe
Nidek
Miho Uechi
Nidek
The dipping method has been used as the standard tinting process of ophthalmic lenses for a long time, and even in today’s digitalized era, the analog dipping method has remained without any specific changing.
Nidek proposes a totally different type of tinting method (dry tinting technology) that is controlled digitally and automated. By only using little waste liquid to the dry tinting process, it can contribute to reducing a large amount of waste liquid compared to standard dipping methods, which also leads to environmental protection.
Most lens materials that are commonly used are applicable on this dry tinting technology. The method allows tinting in higher density, including gradient patterns. No special skills are required, and anyone can tint the stable color with minimized color deviation by using the digital ink control application on the computer. In addition to gradients, double colors, triple colors, and rainbow colors can be created easily. The technology is well proven in Nidek´s and other labs around the world for 20 years.
Joanna Zhang
Satisloh
Xavier Bultez
Satisloh
The paper job ticket is one item that has never evolved in the ophthalmic industry. It has been practical, easy to manipulate and read, and flexible – adapting to any process. Until now, no other technology was really able to replace it while offering a better solution. Satisloh believes that the E-Ticket System provides a solution that not only eliminates the paper job tickets, but it is a new way of working and tackling daily tasks – improving ophthalmic lab workflows and processes.
Dr. Jessica Jarosz
Laclarée
Dr. Bruno Berge
Laclarée
We will present the status of the most recent existing projects and products related to correcting presbyopia with variable lenses. The basic principles of underlying technologies will be discussed, and relative performances will be compared. A particular focus will be made on the fluidic lenses of Laclarée, which can enable a true restauration of natural accommodation, as shown by the results of an exploratory clinical trial and by field tests using personalized adaptive eyeglasses.
Pau ArtĂşs
Horizons Optical
Centering devices are increasingly common in optical stores since position of wear measurements are important to ensure the optical quality of ordered lenses. They provide improved precision and reliability compared to traditional marker+ruler hand-based methods. Many options are already available in the market that provide fairly good assistance to optometrist however, some important drawbacks are still present, i.e. most of them require annoying gadgets while others make the patient and optometrist go through a long and uncomfortable process. AI-powered centering devices have the potential to become a game changer in terms of precision, operation speed and, for the first time, an appealing user experience.
Dr. Marcel Mahner
Schneider
While automated manufacturing systems have become the new standard of modern ophthalmic labs, to-date two important elements have not been fully integrated: on-block power measurement and cosmetic inspection. Schneider has closed the loop of its smart and fully automated future lab, by enabling holistic quality control – more integrated and smarter than ever. Two AI-based innovations make this step forward possible: Firstly, an on-block power measurement system, that allows for in-line power measurement right after surfacing, providing immediate feedback for fastest reaction time and facilitating effective trend monitoring.
Secondly, a system that combines final full-map power measurement with AI-based cosmetic inspection. The data is not only collected but directly feeds the system with important and quality defining information, leading to immediate logical actions.
This significantly improves the overall lab efficiency, e.g. by saving production time, reducing tool costs and minimizing breakage. The result is a fully automated process and a most comprehensive quality control.
André Durow
brillenstudio N
“High-quality spectacle lenses at affordable prices!” Opticians are confronted with this request every day. But what is affordable? Customers often answer with amounts between 400 and 600 euros for a complete pair of glasses. This is in stark contrast to developments in the industry.
Spectacle lenses are becoming increasingly individualized. There are more and more high-end products. Lenses that cost 1200 or 1700 euros per pair are no longer a rarity.
Conversely, however, this means that the ophthalmic lens industry is only developing lenses for the top ten thousand. It is like a car manufacturer only offering cars in the luxury segment.
So how sensible is it to go further and further in this segment? Do consumers in this high-end segment even notice the difference to the previous lenses? And how can we deal with the fact that the highest quality products end up being sold off by large chains?
This raises the question of whether the industry should take responsibility for making high-quality lenses more affordable, preventing the chains from selling them off and creating transparency for the customer so that comparisons can be made. After all, progressive lenses are neither comparable nor comprehensible for customers.
Jamal El-Hindi
Filtertech
Filtration and waste management are often overlooked and lower on the priority list. Like any manufacturing process, maintaining equipment is key to keeping production running smoothly and uninterrupted. When filtration and waste management are a priority, production is more efficient.
Dr. Wolfgang Becken
Rodenstock
The linear relation between the lateral increase of surface astigmatism and the increase of surface power along an umbilical line was described by Minkwitz and is known as the Minkwitz theorem. However, in many cases, modern progressive addition lenses do not show an umbilical principal line. Therefore, we propose to extend the Minkwitz theorem to nonumbilical lines and higher order terms than the linear term of the increase in the peripheral astigmatism. We were able to derive a “generalized Minkwitz theorem,” which holds true for a prescribed astigmatism at the principal line. The derived generalized Minkwitz theorem also indicates that the increase of the astigmatism perpendicular to the principal line depends not only on the power increase, as described by the Minkwitz theorem, but also on the astigmatism increase along the principal line. The Minkwitz theorem itself is a special case of this generalization.
As an application, we demonstrate an example how a progressive addition lens could benefit from that generalization resulting in a reduction of unwanted astigmatism in the periphery.
Panel Discussion
See on the next page, what we did in the past.