Trivex, Polycarbonate, High Index, Plastic, Glass

Trivex combines the crisp optics of plastic lenses with the durability, light weight, and impact resistance of polycarbonate lenses making Trivex an excellent choice for three-piece mountings.

Polycarbonate lenses are thinner and lighter than traditional plastic eyeglass lenses. In addition, they are very impact resistant. This durability makes them a good choice for children's glasses, drill mount frames, sports eyewear and safety glasses.

High Index lenses have been created in a variety of new plastic materials that bend light more than the conventional plastic used for eyeglasses. This means less lens material can be used to correct the same amount of refraction.

Plastic lenses are much lighter and less breakable than glass lenses. They are great for prescription sunglasses due to their tintability factor. You an virtually tint a plastic lens to any color.

Glass was the first lens material used to make modern-day eyeglasses. Its earliest use is documented back to the 13th century in Venice, Italy. Glass lenses have excellent optical qualities, but are heavy and uncomfortable to wear.

Drill Mount Material Recommendations

Over the last few months we have been studying material usage, durability, lab breakage, customer comments, and general lens performance in three-piece drill mountings. The recommendations below are based on our findings and recommendations of frame manufacturers as well.

Materials: Polycarbonate, Trivex, Resolution by Optima, and 1.67 by Seiko and Zeiss are the only materials that we recommend. Polycarbonate, Trivex, Resolution also offers your patients the added benefit of impact resistance, which we feel is very important when wearing a three-piece mounting. Seiko and Zeiss 1.67 materials offer more impact resistance than other 1.66 and 1.67 products. All of these materials are compatible with AR coatings.

Mid Index: These materials are very brittle and breakage is very high for the patient and lab. Adding an AR coating makes this type of material even more brittle; therefore we will no longer recommend these materials for drill mount frames.

Photochromic: There are numerous lens styles available in Polycarbonate Transitions, plus Seiko offers a 1.67 SV and Progressive in Transition. Trilogy (also know as Trivex & Phoenix) single vision is also now available in Transitions. Therefore we can no longer offer Sunsensors or Spectralite Velocity in drill mounts due to high lab spoilage and patient lens breakage.