Advanced multimedia applications require adequate support for the modeling of multimedia content by multimedia document models. This support more and more calls not only for the adequate modeling of the temporal and spatial course of a multimedia presentation and its interactions, but also for the partial reuse of multimedia documents and adaptation to a given user context. Our thorough investigation of existing standards for multimedia document models such as HTML, MHEG, SMIL, and HyTime, (see also [BKW99]), however, leads to us the conclusion, that these standard models do not provide sufficient modeling support for reuse and adaptation. Therefore, we propose a new approach for the modeling of adaptable and reusable multimedia content, the ZYX model. The model offers primitives that provide - beyond the more or less common primitives for temporal, spatial, and interaction modeling - a variform support for reuse of structure and layout of document fragments and for the adaptation of the content and its presentation to the user context. We present the model in detail and illustrate the application and effectiveness of these concepts by samples taken from our Cardio-OP application in the domain of cardiac surgery. With the ZYX model, we developed a comprehensive means for advanced multimedia content creation: support for template-driven authoring of multimedia content; support for flexible, dynamic composition of multimedia documents customized to the user's local context and needs. The approach significantly impacts and supports the authoring process in terms of methodology and economic aspects.

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