[logfromblammo]

Hobbyist-grade volume printing does not have the resolution necessary to create an eyeglass lens.

But some old washing machine parts and an Arduino can grind out any lens shape you might need from a printed blank. Building a garage lens grinder using a volume printer wouldn't be any more complicated than replicating a RepRap.

You really could make a pair of glasses from one type of plastic. If you need the temple pieces to fold (if it even has temple pieces), the same hinge design used by whittlers to make pliers from a single piece of wood would suffice, and could probably be cut with a laser of the correct wavelength.

[jared314]

Please note my other comment. I'm talking specifically about the overpriced frames, not the lenses.

[logfromblammo]

Volume printing is best suited for applications that cannot be mass-produced.

Eyeglass frames can be described adequately by overall width and length of the temple pieces. One machine can produce several similar styles of frame in all the most common sizes before you can blink. If they don't have a brand name on them, frames are dirt cheap.

The lenses are the unique element. If you're not including either the lenses or the unique shape of someone's face in the printing process, there's just no point in doing that instead of going to Costco or Walmart for a frame.

Or you could create a style so alien to current styles that it could not be produced with current mass production machinery. Perhaps it secures the lenses with nose and eyebrow piercings, or a hatband-like ring around the entire head, or a pince-nez style that puts silicone hooks over your nostrils.

The lenses are still the majority of the effort.