Measuring Your PD

Measuring Your Pupillary Distance (PD)

Asking a friend to help you:

This is the easiest method for measuring you PD. With your friend sitting opposite you at the same height ask them to place a ruler across your forehead just above your eyes with the millimetre side facing upwards.

Next ask your friend to close their right eye and you then look directly into their left eye. Ask your friend to slide the ruler so that the zero value is in the centre of your right pupil and to keep the ruler very steady across your forehead. Then ask your friend to close their left eye and for you to look directly into their right eye.

Your friend will then read off the measurement to the centre of your left pupil. And that’s it! It really is that easy! Please see the diagram below to help you further.

 

Measuring your PD

 

Using your current glasses to measure you PD with help from a friend:

Put your glasses on so that they are comfortable and steady. Ask your friend to stand opposite you and mark on your lenses the position of your pupils with a non permanent marker.

You should now see two lines directly infront of you whilst wearing your spectacles. Take off your glasses and measure the distance between the two markings. And that’s it! If the measurement reads 6cm the PD distance will be 60. If the measurement is 6.3cm then your PD will be 63.

For Varifocal Measurement of your pupillary distance we recommend that individual measurements are used for increased accuracy of dispensing varifocals due to the more complex nature of the lenses. In order to do this simply measure from your right eye to the middle of your nose and then from the middle of your nose to your left eye to obtain the required individual readings for your right eye and left eye. Either adopt the above principals of looking directly into the corresponding eyes of the person who is taking this measurement or alternatively when the person is taking this measurement look 'through' the helper as if you are looking into the far distance as should you look directly at the person your eyes will converge giving an inaccurate measurement.

We recommend doing this measurement a few times until your measurements are static and correlate the same measurement. If in any doubt then please contact us for further help and information. Alternatively you can request for your optician to take this measurement for you but they may charge a fee for doing so. However for the small fee incurred it should be accurate.

PDFDownload our PD Ruler and instructions PDF here to aid with measuring your PD.