3d printing of an optical lens

You would need to use a 3D printing service.  iMaterialize offers a clear resin that might work-

http://i.materialise.com/materials/transparent-resin

Hi,

I took a few minutes and modeled your lens for you:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:93321

I saved it as a .STEP file and a high-polygon .STL, as well as the native .SLDPRT. Feel free to use these models to send to potential 3D printing vendors during your search.

One thing I think you'll find is that because both surfaces of the lens are high-radius curves, FDM is a difficult print format for this part, since it doesn't handle such extreme overhangs without support. You could use support, but it will mar the surface of your print (i.e. the lens face). There are always post-processing techniques to smooth/polish this surface, though, so don't let that discourage you.

Depending on how flexible you are, I know that Professor Ganter at the Solheim Additive Manufacturing Laboratory at the University of Washington has been using a 3D printing technique to create glass parts. It's research based, but this seems like an excellent candidate for that.

Please let me know if you have any further questions!

Hi Guillaume,

I have sent you a private message with additional information. Please check your PMs.

Couple thoughts from a physicist:
To make a good lens you need material with high index of refraction, this way you can make the lens thinner and have less losses. Plastics usually have low index of refraction, so your lens would be bigger than needs to be if made out of plastic instead of glass. Look up lens makers equation. The radii in your sketch depend on index of refraction. Also note that index of refraction for the same element varies from red to green to blue light. So not all components of light would focus in the same place. Compound lenses that mitigate this effect are called APO-corrected lenses. Most likely the plastic simple lens will be extremely not APO-corrected so basically difference of index of refraction from red to blue light will be very large. Also the crystal lattice faults in melted/printed plastic will be very high. This will result in a lens of very very very low quality. Look up on youtube "how lenses are made" there is a good video about cannon lenses.

This company claims to have recently printed lenses and frames.... very recently...

Luxexcel.com  (check them out)

Which from what I understand is a pretty big deal (the lens part)... I happen to have a pretty big vested interest in seeing this technology take off in the future...

I own the domain names: LensPrinters.com and LensPrinting.com... plus a few others.

Anything else you can tell me about your own experiences would be great to hear.... how did your lens turn out?

Also... It was my understanding that a majority of lenses produced worldwide were comprised of polycarbonate "plastics" ... is this accurate?

Thanks in advance!

Hello Everyone,

I, too, am very interested in this topic.  I am a lay person so I don't profess to have technical savvy; just a commercial interest.

Thanx

Hello,
I noticed our company was mentioned here, and I wanted to shed some light on the current situation.

3D printing a lens is possible with our companies recently developed "printoptical technology" With this technology polishing is no longer necessary.

LUXeXceL has developed a revolutionary 3D printing technology for making perfectly smooth surfaces. The company is fully focused on enabling design, rapid prototyping optics, and manufacturing of optics, lenses and optical surfaces so there is no longer a difference in making 1, 10, 100 or 1000 pieces. This Technology is called Printoptical Technology, a patented one-step-CAD-to-optic manufacturing process. Unique is that there is no need for post-processing (grinding, polishing / coloring etc.). Recently LUXeXceL came in the picture globally as a proof of concept has been printed: A functional pair of glasses (frame + lenses in one print job). Momentarily the company is focused on supporting the LED lighting industry with the possibility to offer customized optics and even great free-form designs.

I invite you to visit our website for more information

I wonder about publishing something that could keep the adverse form of an visual area, like publishing a telescope reflection, removing it, and then silvering it.