2012 Award Winners
Award-winning project: BIOLOX® app and BIOLOX® motions: Surgeon consultation and training with interactive media for handling ceramic hip prostheses
Project partners: CeramTec GmbH | Steinbeis Transfer Center Technical Communication – Paracam/Salach
With the latest developments in new media – smartphones and tablets – the possibilities for digital publishing have expanded once again. However, in accordance with the specifications of the respective operating systems, apps for these devices must be developed within their own specific programming environments. For content producers, this means at least double the effort. When internet or desktop solutions are factored in, companies quickly reach their internal limits when attempting to send their messages into the digital world with as little wastage as possible.
CeramTec GmbH, the global market leader in ceramic hip joints, faces the challenge of informing around 50,000 surgeons worldwide about the properties of its high-performance ceramic, BIOLOX®, and the specific surgical techniques involved, as well as training them in its use. Traditional media alone are no longer sufficient to reach this audience effectively.
Together with the Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Technical Communication – Paracam at Aalen University, CeramTec therefore developed the BIOLOX® app. Numerous animations, surgical videos and other media demonstrate the correct implantation of BIOLOX® components. All animations and the interactive interface were produced by the Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Technical Communication – Paracam. What makes this special is that the Steinbeis team established a platform-neutral workflow which allows smartphone, tablet, web and desktop applications to be created largely from a single programming environment – a cost- and time-saving approach that comes very close to the ideal of so-called cross-media and single-source publishing.
The award-winning development of the BIOLOX® app more than met the project partners’ expectations, to the extent that work is already underway on the beta version of a second app, which will offer entirely new possibilities for the visualisation and simulation of hip joints in action. Using a motion-capture system, the movements of human subjects are recorded in the studio and then transferred to a virtual skeleton. Specific stresses and critical conditions affecting artificial hip joints can be immediately identified in the interactive 3D representation – a vital aid for orthopaedic surgeons who are treating increasingly younger and more active patients.