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Comment by evarady | Hacker News Reader

I'm Eric, the founder of Topology Eyewear. Our 3D face scan (via our iPhone app) is way more accurate than a standard pupilometer used in a Doctor's office (and WAY WAY better than a ruler or dots placed by a sharpie!). We solve for monocular PD, so no need to beg your doctor for this piece of info that isn't technically part of your Rx. Check it out at http://www.topologyeyewear.com or on the App Store at http://bit.ly/topologyapp I'm happy to answer here any optical or technical questions anyone has - just hit reply!

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Right. Except that you have to buy eyeglasses if you want those numbers. The app will not tell them to you, and the frames alone are $349, not counting lenses. Total price starts at $600 and goes up. So, no thanks. I'll pass.

That's insane! $349 I could buy like 10 pairs at any other online store with the upgraded coating.

I live in ex-USSR in one of the poorest republics. My mom bought recently nice eyeglasses for $3.50. The procedure is this: you name the type of lenses (+2 + 3 etc) and they give a bunch of eyglasses with different ocular differences. You chose one that works for you and then choose the frame.

Yikes, that's a scam right there

Spendy! Good to know, I'll skip the app and keep using zenni.

Curious about a couple points:

- How does the 3D scanning work? Presumably photogrammetry? What kind of accuracy are we talking about here in terms of typical measurement tolerances?

- The frames are actually custom-fit? Are they machined or 3D printed or do you just have access to many permutationsof a given frame?

[edit, formatting]

Great question: -for older devices without a depth sensor, we do a combination of pure computer vision (detect landmarks in 2D, then solve for 3D, then apply a morphable model (3DMM). After an order is placed, we'll do photogrammetry to further refine the model. -for newer devices with the TrueDepth sensor (used for FaceID), we build a mesh directly from that. -accuracy is sub-millimeter. -frames are 100% custom. For each frame, for each customer, we adjust over 20 different dimensions for a perfect fit. Down to the unique contours of your nose. It's all 5-axis CNC machined (for plastic) and laser-cut (for stainless steel) (also sorry if I overstepped earlier. I'm just trying to be helpful. Long time reader, but first time commenter.)

Doesn't Apple limit the resolution of depth sensor data for 3rd-party apps? Such scans are much less accurate than FaceID or a 3D camera connected to a laptop or mobile device.

Newer iphones now have an IR projecting depth camera built in

I am extremely skeptical. Why? Because if you're using your phone to measure PD, you're presumably looking at the phone as you do so and your pupils are converged compared to a PD measurement when focusing at a distant (near infinity) object. It's not clear to me how using a 3d sensor to scan a face solves this problem and why this would be superior to the "focus on something far away and put dots on an old pair of glasses" method described here: http://www.daniellivingston.com/2012/06/measuring-your-own-p...

What are HN's rules regarding advertising? Where's the line between a helpful comment from someone recommending their own product and an ad?

Posts like this are generally accepted by the community, especially when they make it clear that the commentator has a relationship with the company.

What is technically against the guidelines is complaining about the appropriateness of a comment. It is preferred that you downvote or flag inappropriate comments. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Got me, but I just added Topology Eyewear to my list of companies to never do business with.

Don't spam in my pleasure reading.

It's not really spam when it's a legitimately helpful comment.

It pretty clearly crossed the spam line for me: The parent specifically pointed out that doctors don't give you the PD to in order to force you to buy glasses from them, but suggests there are other ways to obtain it. Eric replies to talk about how much better their app is than any do-it-yourself PD measurement but does not disclose that their app also doesn't give you the measurements in order to force you to buy glasses from them. I did not find this helpful and it is clearly commercial, since the app has no utility other than to sell you their glasses.

Oh look, a guy trying to be helpful while making some money mentions his product on a fucking tech-news website run by a famous startup incubator and you idiots want to report it?

Classy.

This is especially stupid considering the entrenched eyeglass industry is a monopoly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7H-_8UkmFU

Basically, this guy can't NOT be helpful

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