Visually impactful
Dynamic, easy to recognise, and virtually impossible to copy.
Micro-optic security films and labels — cast, converted and coded in the UK
Optrical manufactures micro-optic security films on its own 1.1 metre roll-to-roll line, in the tradition of currency and government document printing — then either supplies it as printed film on the reel, or converts it here into finished labels, seals, tax stamps, tapes and threads.
Almost everyone else in this market buys their optical layer in. We can then also print variable QRs and UIDs onto these, which is why the security of both products is ours to stand behind rather than a subcontractor’s.
The technology
A micro-optic device is not a picture printed onto a label. It is an optical system built into the film: an array of tens of thousands of microlenses, held at a precise cast distance above an array of micro-images measured in microns. Move the label and the lenses sweep across those images, generating a single image that appears to float in front of and behind the surface, in real colour, in real time.
None of that survives a scanner, a camera or a printing press. There is no artwork file to steal, because the image you see is never on the film — it is created by the film, as you move it.
Verification by eye
A customer in a shop, an inspector at a border and a distributor in a warehouse all authenticate the same way, in about a second, with nothing but daylight and a flick of the wrist.
That is the point of an optical device: the check happens before anyone has decided whether it is worth checking. Labels apply directly to the product, the carton or the primary pack.
Features and benefits
Dynamic, easy to recognise, and virtually impossible to copy.
A micro-optic layer and a micro-printed graphic indicia produce a dynamic 3D effect in real colour.
Any attempt to lift or reapply a label leaves permanent, visible evidence.
A unique identifier on every unit, verified in any phone browser.
A proportionate deterrent against counterfeiting and duplication.
Our products
Security threads
Every other format here is applied to something. A thread is built into it — ultra-fine, woven into a brand label or used as the stitching itself, carrying the same micro-optic construction as the film it is cut from.
That difference matters most where the label is the weak point. A genuine brand label can be unpicked and sewn into other product, or simply cut out so nothing remains to check. Neither works on a thread that is holding the garment together: removing it means destroying what it is part of.
It is checked the same way as everything else we make — tilt it, and the optics answer. No app, no reader, no training.
Where we differ
Serialised print and embossed foil holograms are both sold as anti-counterfeit measures, and both can be bought by anyone with a purchase order — including the people counterfeiting your product. Micro-optic film cannot, because the barrier to entry is a production line and a body of process knowledge, not a supplier list.
The same goes for the code on the label. A pattern that is hard to copy and an identity that is unique per unit normally come from two suppliers and get stitched together afterwards. Here they are specified together, on one job number, and the join that usually fails does not exist.
What is included
A micro-patterned security layer that is difficult to reproduce convincingly outside the original production line, and shows any attempt to lift or reapply it.
Every label carries its own code, not a shared link printed thousands of times.
Time, location and device for every scan, tied back to the specific physical unit it came from.
Pattern and code are specified together at the start, rather than reconciled between two vendors afterwards.
Converted into the label shapes and sizes your existing packaging line already uses.
Customers and field teams verify exactly as they would any other code, with no separate app.
From film line to scan record
Micro-optic film is cast on our roll-to-roll line, micro-printed and converted into your label, tape, stamp or thread format.
Each unit is issued a unique identifier and registered before it leaves the line.
Customers, inspectors and distributors check with a phone. You see the resulting pattern.
The optional second layer
Micro-optics answer is this genuine? They cannot answer is this the unit that was supposed to be here? — that needs a per-unit identity, issued and printed in register with the optics on the same pass. Verification is a phone camera and no app.
The physical layer stands on its own. Add the digital one when it earns its place; nothing about the label changes, and the labels have been our business since long before we built a QR platform.
Micro-optics do not photograph well and they do not describe well — the whole point is what happens when you move one. Tell us the product, the pack and roughly the volume, and we will send a physical sample of the closest construction we already make, with options and a price.