In 1907, Owen Aves first proposed the concept of progressive addition lens (PAL), marking the birth of a new concept of presbyopia correction. The design inspiration of progressive lens comes from the shape of elephant's trunk, that is, the curvature of the front surface of the lens increases continuously from the top to the bottom of the lens, so that the refractive power of the lens increases continuously from the far use area at the top of the lens until the required near use refractive correction degree is reached in the near use area at the bottom of the lens.

In 1959, after years of research and development, Frenchman Bernard Maitenaz designed the first generation of progressive lenses that can be used for clinical wear, which made progressive lenses - this new visual correction method - win the attention of the world and soon was widely promoted in many countries. Due to the limitations of technology and the lack of clinical application research at the time, the first generation of progressive lenses failed to achieve the expected clinical wearing effect.

With the development of computers, advanced design software and instruments are applied to the design and development of eyeglass lenses, which has made great progress in the design of progressive lenses. The general trend is: from a single, hard, symmetrical, spherical far vision zone design to a diversified, soft, asymmetrical, aspherical far vision zone design.

The initial progressive lens design mainly focused on mathematical, mechanical, and optical issues. With a more comprehensive understanding of the visual system, modern and future progressive lens design will increasingly focus on the connection between progressive lenses and physiological optics, human behavior, aesthetics, psychophysics, etc.