Optical

The Vision Council created the Optical Product Code (OPC) for marking retail optical products, similar to how the Uniform Product Code (UPC) is used for marking general retail items. The code has historically used the Interleaved 2 of 5 barcode symbology, but as technology advances and more information must be encoded, the industry is moving towards the two-dimensional Data Matrix standard.

Similarly, country of origin information has historically been encoded by using the Code 128 symbology with character set C, but this information is more often being included with the OPC in the Data Matrix symbol.

Optical industry standards include the following, which are published by The Vision Council:

• Optical Product Code (OPC) Guide for Lenses: Specifies the Interleaved 2 of 5 symbology.

• Country of Origin for Lenses Standard - 2010: Specifies the "128C" (Code 128 with the C character set) symbology.

• 2D Barcode Standard For Lenses (Optical Product Code [OPC]/Country of Origin [CoO]): Specifies the Data Matrix symbology.

The Data Matrix standard is based on the ISO/IEC 16022 Information Technology - Automatic identification and data capture techniques - Data Matrix barcode symbology specification standard.

The OPC is a 10-digit numeric code that identifies the manufacturer and product. It consists of the following elements:

• Manufacturer identification number: A five-digit number assigned by The Vision Council

• Item identification number: A four-digit number assigned and controlled by the optical manufacturer

• Check digit

The Country of Origin (CoO) code is an eight-digit code that identifies the countries in which the part is made and/or processed. It consists of the following elements:

• Zero followed by a three-digit country code (as specified by ISO 3166-1) to specify the country in which the part or the substrate is made

• Zero followed by a three-digit country code to specify the country in which the part is processed (if this does not apply, the last four digits are 0999)