System and method for inspecting mold defects in wet ophthalmic lenses

A system for identifying defects and measuring geometric dimensions in cosmetic ophthalmic lens immersed in a saline solution, the system, comprising:

• a) at least one camera for obtaining images of the cosmetic ophthalmic lens, the camera having an optical axis;
• b) at least one electronically controlled illumination module designed with visible and infrared LEDs, segmented accordingly and suitably integrated to be positioned along the vertical optical axis for directing light at different angles to the cosmetic ophthalmic lens;
• c) a customized glass cuvette designed with concave, concentric and spherical surfaces to avoid adding more optical power to the cosmetic ophthalmic lens under inspection and with the radius of the interior surface of the cuvette designed to be bigger than the lens to enable locating the cosmetic ophthalmic lens to the center of the cuvette during inspection;
• d) a strobe controller integrated to the illumination module and camera that is capable of capturing multiple images in quick succession under different lighting conditions, utilizing visible LED and infrared LED segments;
• and
• (e) an image processing means for capturing, processing and analysing multiple images to determine if the cosmetic ophthalmic lens is acceptable or rejected;
• wherein the illumination module includes a non-reflective surface structure configured to keep an incident light angle of the infrared LEDs within a predetermined angle with respect to a surface of the cuvette;
• and
• wherein infrared LED based illumination exhibits low refractive index when passing through the saline solution effectively eliminating distortions in image capture of a saline immersed cosmetic ophthalmic lens.