Volume Interactions Pte Ltd was a company that pioneered in the 1990s the use

Virtual Reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

technology in surgery planning. The company created and marketed the

Dextroscope The Dextroscope is a medical equipment system that creates a virtual reality (VR) environment in which surgeons can plan neurosurgical and other surgical procedures. The Dextroscope is designed to show a patient's 3D anatomical relationships an ...

, the first commercial surgical planning system that used virtual reality principles going beyond the mouse and keyboard. The

introduced a variation of

technology that didn't use

Head-Mounted display A head-mounted display (HMD) is a display device, worn on the head or as part of a helmet (see Helmet-mounted display for aviation applications), that has a small display optic in front of one (monocular HMD) or each eye ( binocular HMD). An H ...

(using instead a

stereoscopic display Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the depth perception, illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stere ...

that housed a two-handed 3D user interface) that provided a natural and comfortable interface to work with multi-modality 3D medical images for long periods of time. This environment was applied to the planning of patient-specific surgical approaches for several clinical disciplines, including

neurosurgery Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...

, Ear-Nose-Throat, and liver surgery. The Dextroscope received world-wide attention by being involved in the planning of several

craniopagus Craniopagus twins are conjoined twins that are fused at the cranium. The union may occur on any portion of the cranium, but does not primarily involve either the face or the foramen magnum; their brains are usually separate, but they may share so ...

twin separations, most notably the Zambian twins (1997) and the German twins (2004) at

Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...

led by Dr Benjamin Carson, and the Nepali twins separation at the

Singapore General Hospital Singapore General Hospital (SGH) is an academic health science centre and tertiary referral hospital in Singapore. It is located next to the Bukit Merah and Chinatown districts of the Central Region, close to the Outram Community Hospital (OCH ...

in 2001. The Dextroscope was launched in Europe in 2000 and subsequently in Asia and the USA (2006). The company later introduced the Dextrobeam, a product designed to make 3D medical stereoscopic presentations to large audiences, using stereoscopic projection systems. The company Quality Management System complied with the requirements of ISO 13485:2003 and the products were listed in the Singapore Medical Device Registration (SMDR) by the

Health Sciences Authority The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Health of the Government of Singapore. It is a multi-disciplinary agency, responsible for applying medical, pharmaceutical and scientific expertise to protect and ...

of Singapore. The

and Dextrobeam received USA FDA 510(K) - class II (2002) clearance, CE Marking - class I (2002), China SFDA Registration - class II (2004) and Taiwan Registration - type P (Radiology) (2007). The company was a spin-off company from th
Kent Ridge Digital Labs
research institute in Singapore. The company was founded in 2000 in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

by Luis Serra, Ng Hern, Ralf A Kockro, Eugene CK Lee and Chris Goh with seed capital fro
Life Sciences Investments (LSI) Pte Ltd.
a co-investment fund of the Singapor
Economic Development Board Investments Pte Ltd.
(EDBI). It was later acquired by th
Bracco Group
in 2002. Volume Interactions ceased commercial operations in 2008.

References

Companies established in 2000 Companies of Singapore {{Singapore-company-stub