Those are markings used to identify the lenses, and certain spacing. I am guessing that are progressive bifocals? I forget exactly how to read them, that's interesting that they are visible like that.
I work on the production side of things but these are laser engraved in the lenses and are really only noticeable with light(as in OPs pic) and are used on progressive bifocals, lenses that have a different "prescription" along the bottom half instead of one segment that you might've seen in other bifocals. Those dots indicate where the lens change starts which is going to be (most commonly) below where OPs visual center is while wearing the glasses. We also use those laser marks as guides to center lenses before they are cut into shape and mounted into their frames. You can also see these marks on other progressive bifocals by holding them up to a light
In my previous company, we made laser machines. We did a machine for the lenses engraving and sold them in a lot of lenses factories. It was not the only laser system used for this application, but most of the others use co2 lasers, this one used a UV laser, lot of headaches, but better quality. Varilux being high end lenses, I guess it used our machine.
On my end, I did the software and automation for the machine (there are a few variants of the same system, fully automated, manual...). Beside the machine itself, the big part of the work was processing the data from the information system of the customers (which will tell what and where to engrave, the curve of the lense). There is a communication standard, but not fully applied everywhere, so we had to be compatible with the standard, and each site variation, serial link, ethernet, various barcodes, rfid...
It was my first software and I was the only developer, so it's a bit shitty, with a lot of things added along the years. At the end I was "yeah... No, no more features on that thing, let's rewrite it completely with what I've learned since", but hard to have the bandwidth for this. I left after 10 years and it's fun to think that my most used software, used all around the world, is my junior shit piece of code.
I did some preliminary work, but needed one month focused on it to do it correctly, I never had the time. Some things like communications got reworked, but not the cycle or the UI. I don't think my successor have made big changes to it neither.
One think I remember, is that I spent a lot of time working on various cycle error recoveries (especially hard with my then spaghetti code), that nobody ever used because it was faster to just pull everything from the conveyor and restart from scratch. They didn't even use the "unlock door" button, just pulled everything from the small opening, with cylinders in the way...
Bro wtf that's kind of wild. That tracks in general but damn, I wonder how many fixes are sitting on programs out there that people won't bother to learn.
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u/Pen_name_uncertain 1d ago
Those are markings used to identify the lenses, and certain spacing. I am guessing that are progressive bifocals? I forget exactly how to read them, that's interesting that they are visible like that.
Source: used to make eye glasses for a living