It took nearly two years to bring the app to market. “For instance, when someone walks, the muscles that become active at different parts of the gait cycle will light up in the model,” explains Ruff. Animated 3D models show the movements of muscles and bones in activities like raising an arm. They can also tap on anatomical labels to reveal educational information or use the ‘X-ray option’ to see a more transparent version that reveals three-dimensional positioning.

Users can spin, tilt, dissect, write on and highlight different areas of the body. It boasts more than 3,000 anatomy structures grouped into four regions: head and neck, upper limbs, trunk, and lower limbs. “For someone who wants to understand how, say, a thumb works, that’s critical.”Īimed at students, doctors, artists, forensic scientists and even archeologists, Muscle Anatomy, as it’s also known, launched in March. “It’s flexible, dynamic-and accurate, which are all important aspects for the market it’s aimed at,” says Ruff, science consultant to Muscle Anatomy: A Johns Hopkins Medicine 3D App.

That’s why Ruff is excited about a new 3-D musculoskeletal app produced by Johns Hopkins Medicine and biomedical visualization company BioDigital. Anatomy professor Christopher Ruff says there’s a funny thing about mobile apps meant to educate students on musculoskeletal anatomy: A lot of the anatomy images used are wrong.

Muscle free interactive anatomy