Read-Eye

Read-Eye can select a fuller range of lens tints than was previously available

The Read-Eye Story

Introduction

The human eye was perfected over millenia to spy a gazelle on the veldt or a mammoth in Monmouthshire, but it can have problems recognising printed symbols by the light of a flickering fluorescent tube. These visual perception problems cause some people to experience difficulty with reading.

Research into dyslexia has demonstrated that colour can have an effect on visual perception problems. It has been shown that coloured overlays reduce visual stress and increase reading fluency in about 20% of school children. In 5% of children the increase in speed is greater than 25%.

Applying modern technology

A year ago DIVERSE developed a lamp that is colour selectable across the spectrum, using light emitting diodes to ensure that the cones in the eye are stimulated by a controllable colour source.

A suite of tests developed by Ian Jordan was linked to the lamp’s development and are used for setting the lamp to an individual’s optimum colour settings. The tests also enable the lamp to be used to screen for children with visual dyslexia without requiring that they can read text.

Educationalists found the lamp to be a useful tool for assessment and for helping reduce some children’s problems with text recognition. However, the lamp has a major drawback. Unlike transparent overlays and children, the lamp needs to be plugged to a wall.

The future in rose tinted spectacles

Obviously the simplest way to compensate for visual perception difficulties is with the provision of glasses. By prescribing spectacles with tinted lenses opticians have already achieved impressive improvements in patients with visually stimulated conditions such as migraine, macula degeneration and visual dyslexia..

There were two factors that held opticians back from providing these tinted spectacles to the large number of people who could benefit from them. The first factor was the limited range of dye tints available. Recently a major manufacturer made advances in plastic lens materials and vastly increased the range of suitable dyes for tinting lenses.

The second factor was the difficulty of accurately prescribing exactly the right tint. DIVERSE has developed a diagnostic instrument for opticians that enables them to accurately prescribe the right tint. The result of the development is the Award Winning diagnostic instrument Read-Eye.

Read-Eye

Read-Eye allows for the quantitative prescription of coloured lenses. The system assists in selecting the best tints and tint density and then simulates the effect so that the patient can experience and evaluate the colour tint at the time of testing.

Read-Eye uses custom algorithms that allow the optician to combine the Jordan eye tests with a colour selectable light source to rapidly generate the quantitative prescription of the tint.

Ambient lighting is included in the subsequent filter determination process and even the effect of coatings on the lens can be built into the optimisation process.

Smart Award

The development of Read-Eye resulted in DIVERSE winning a Smart Award for Industry. This diagnostic instrument will soon be available to far sighted opticians everywhere marketted exclusively through Orthoscopics.

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