What is a Dilating Pupil?

Learn about how Dilating Pupils Work

Pupils in the center of our eyes change size depending how bright the lighting is. If a person wears an artificial eye, only the natural eye’s pupil gets bigger and smaller as the lighting changes. The pupil in an ocular prosthesis typically stays the same size, until now.

Prosthetic eye makers have talked for decades about the possibility of placing a pupil inside the artificial eye that appears to grow in size under low lighting, just as a natural pupil does. Thanks to digital technology, and our many years of experience in making digitally color-matched eye colors that replicate fine detailed structures and colors in an iris, we have developed a technique that makes this possible.

Digitally Created Dilating Pupil Appearance

Does the Dilating Pupil change with lighting?

Watch as the lighting on her face gradually dims and the natural eye pupil on the left becomes larger – the artificial eye pupil on the right follows – appearing to get larger and smaller as the lighting changes.

If you wear a prosthetic eye, we can add a dilating pupil effect into your next prosthesis, along with matching your natural eye color to virtual perfection so nobody will ever notice. Years of collaboration with Fredric Harwin and his artistic abilities, combined with our technical skills led to the creation of the digital dilating pupil.

Patented Digital Iris with Dilating Pupil

Learn more about our Patented Digital Iris Dilating Pupil

Generations of Ocularists and their patients have talked about having an ocular prosthesis with a natural appearance of a changing pupil size from bright light conditions to dim or dark conditions, however this has never been achieved until now.

At Advanced Artificial Eyes, we have developed a patented digital dilating pupil collarette which creates the natural appearance of having a small diameter under bright lighting conditions, which gradually increases in diameter as the lighting darkens.

We have now incorporated our dilating pupil technology in prosthetic eyes for many patients, and would like to extend the availability of our technology for Ocularists and patients around the world.

If you are ready for a new prosthesis, we would be pleased to make your next eye using our patented dilating pupil technology.