👂 3D Bone-Anchored Hearing Aid Osseointegration Simulator

Why This Sim Is a 3D Bone Cross-Section, Not a Flat Diagram

The 2D version of this simulator walks through the six clinical stages of a bone-anchored hearing implant as a scrollytelling narrative. This 3D companion instead drops you directly into the surgical site: a real, orbitable cross-section of mastoid bone with a threaded titanium fixture seated inside it, so the geometry that actually matters — how deep the fixture sits, how much surface area touches living bone, and how far a vibration has to travel from the external processor to the cochlea — can be inspected from any angle rather than read as a label.

The underlying physiology is identical to the 2D model: the same logistic bone-implant-contact (BIC) growth curve over the healing timeline, the same implant stability quotient (ISQ) dip-and-recovery during weeks 2–4 of woven-bone remodeling, and the same transduction-gain formula driven by input sound level and coupling loss. What changes here is that coupling system is now a live, switchable control rather than a fixed stage — drag between percutaneous, passive transcutaneous and active transcutaneous, and watch the fixture's abutment swap for a magnet pair and the transmission-gain readout shift accordingly.

Reading the scene

The titanium fixture sits threaded into the mastoid bone block, its threads studded with small integration particles that start grey (unintegrated) and turn cyan as bone-implant contact rises with the healing timeline. Above the skin line, either a percutaneous abutment post or a subdermal/external magnet pair appears depending on the coupling system selected — the external sound processor repositions itself onto whichever coupling is active. Pulsing rings travel from the processor down through the fixture to a schematic cochlear spiral once secondary stability is reached (around week 3), their brightness and speed scaled by the live transduction-gain reading.

What to try

Set the healing timeline to 0 and watch every integration particle read grey with no vibration reaching the cochlea — the processor cannot be loaded before secondary stability develops. Advance to 12+ weeks and most particles should read cyan (BIC around 85–92%). Then hold the timeline fixed and cycle through the three coupling systems: percutaneous should show the least coupling loss and the brightest cochlear glow at a given sound level, passive transcutaneous the most attenuated, and active transcutaneous in between — matching the 5–15 dB transcutaneous efficiency gap described in the audiology literature the 2D version cites in full.