How To Measure Your: Pupillary Distance (PD)

As you may have guessed, your pupillary distance is the measurement between your pupils. Commonly referred to as “PD” by those of us in the eyewear industry. Why? Because pairing an abbreviated optical term with some finger gun action is a proverbial chef’s kiss.

Your PD measurement is an important part of correctly filling your glasses prescription because it pinpoints exactly where you look through your lenses (aka the optical center of your prescription eyeglasses). Without it, you may end up with blurred vision, which negates the whole purpose of purchasing gloriously good-looking eyewear in the first place.

Generally, your eye doctor will provide your pupillary distance measurements which can be found on your prescription (in millimeters). However, if you do not know your PD, don’t worry, you are in the very capable hands of yourself.

Fun fact: the average pupillary distance for adults is between 54mm-57mm. However, we know you’re anything but average. To ensure you don’t end up with the wrong pupillary distance, bust out your ruler for this next part.

What you need:
● A ruler or measuring tape (no ruler? No problem. You can print one by clicking here
● A mirror and/or a friend
● A pen and paper or something to write on

What you do:
● Grab your friend or stand about 8 inches away from a mirror
● Hold your ruler against your brow
● Look straight then align the ruler’s 0mm with the center of your right pupil
● Without moving the ruler follow the measurement over to the center of your left pupil

Tah dah! Consider your pupillary distance measured. The distance you see between your right and left eye (aka pupil distance) is your very own PD measurement. Please, take note of your PD because you will need it, especially if you are buying your glasses online. The PD tool will give you one number (ex: 62mm), just split that number in half for Left (31mm) and Right (31mm) Eye at checkout.

Single PD (also referred to as binocular PD) is what we just covered in the above sections. But to recap: it’s the pupillary distance between the center of one pupil and the other. This measurement can be used to order any type of prescription glasses except reading glasses.

If you want to obtain the most accurate measurement possible, we suggest measuring for a dual PD or monocular PD which consists of two separate measurements. Simply measure the distance from the top of the bridge of your nose to your pupil on each side.

Now, with your pupillary distance (PD) in hand, you may boldly go on to what we refer to as the fun part.