MOREL, a French eyewear brand, and INITIAL, a Seynod-based 3D printing service bureau, has launched 3D printed glasses for the consumer market.
Founded in 1880 in the Jura region of France, MOREL is a winner of multiple fashion and eyewear design awards, such as the V Award, an eyewear competition, and the Japan Eyewear Award. The latter is given to best designed functional products.
Yvon Gallet, President of INITIAL, said, “We are delighted with this collaboration with MOREL, a company that fully understands how to use the benefits of this technology to its best advantage. An extremely positive result which has yielded excellent quality.”
Revolutionizing the eyewear market
3D printing is adding another dimension to the eyewear market with 3D printed lenses and customized glasses.
In the customization market, Monoqool, a Danish eyewear company, offers a range of glasses. Its Slider series frames weigh (surprisingly) only 4 grams. Another online eyewear retailer, Your Eyewear, manufactures 3D printed nylon and ceramic glasses tailor-made for its customers.
Adding diversity to this, Hoya Vision, a Japanese lens and eyewear producer now headquartered in Thailand, is currently working with Materialise to bring 3D printed glasses, via Yuniku, to the consumers.
But MOREL, going in the other direction, is using 3D printing for mass producing lightweight 3D printed glasses.
3D printing fashion for the consumer market
Moving towards Industry 4.0, mass production is one of the barriers to be crossed for 3D printing technology. Mass manufacturing using 3D printing has already been explored by sportswear brands such as Adidas and Reebok.
Now, MOREL and INITIAL has shown a consumer application of 3D printing in the eyewear industry.
The 3D printed glasses are made in three different models using the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) method. All models are made with a polyamide-based nylon and have a velvety texture. The side arms are made of a titanium alloy known as beta-titanium, one of the most common materials used in orthodontics.
The MOREL frames are manufactured in thousands using INITIAL’s 3D printing services.
All the individually manufactured pieces of the frames are assembled together by MOREL to create the final product which weighs only 10g. The glasses are available in three different colors: Blue, Burgundy, and Black.
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Featured image shows Model 30071L 3D printed glasses by MOREL. Image via MOREL
