Quick Summary
Additional Context
A team at the University of Waterloo has built a digital manufacturing system that prints custom contact lenses in roughly 20 minutes, raising the prospect that a patient could be measured, have a lens designed, and walk out wearing it after one clinic visit.
The approach pairs a purpose-built silicone material with additive manufacturing, and it earned a Gold Medal at the Shanghai International Exhibition of Inventions in June 2026.
Replacing weeks of fittings with a same-day workflow
The bulk of contact lenses on the market are produced in a fixed set of standard shapes and sizes rather than shaped to the individual eye. Soft lenses work well enough for a large share of wearers, but people whose corneas are irregularly shaped frequently need rigid lenses to see clearly, and dialing in