ZEISS to license CREAL's technology to create a digital vision care platform

In an industry first, CREAL will integrate its light field display technology into Zeiss' vision care devices, greatly simplifying vision tests, and thereby enhancing the patient and eye-care practitioner user experience.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland and AALEN, Germany, Sept. 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- 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 21^st 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 Manual and lens-based, they rely on outdated technology.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 contacts^[1], while myopia is constantly growing and is expected to affect 50% of the global population by 2050^[2]. 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

About CREAL

CREAL is a display technology startup based in Switzerland, with a technical team drawn from cutting-edge projects at Intel, Magic Leap, EPFL and CERN. CREAL has developed a patented light field micro-display technology stack, uniquely projecting images with true-to-life depth. While serving vision care applications, CREAL naturally expands its mission toward Augmented Reality hardware. With the same business model and partners among the market leaders in the vision care/eyewear industry, CREAL ultimately enables a much-needed natural and healthy visual experience of digital content. To know more, please visit www.creal.com.

About ZEISS Vision Care

ZEISS Vision Care is one of the world's leading manufacturers of eyeglass lenses and ophthalmic instruments. The unit is allocated to the Consumer Markets segment and develops and produces offerings for the entire eyeglass value chain that are distributed globally under the ZEISS brand. Further information at www.zeiss.com 

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SOURCE CREAL