3D Mouse ?

[AC]

I attended an event a few days ago and saw what I was told was one of the first 3D mice in the country.

I was intrigued. I have used a 3D Connection spaceball for CAD modelling but this device seemed to be for gaming.

Here is a video of a spaceball from 3dConnection:

more videos, 3D Connections's new £30 'SpaceNavigator'


This was the 3D mouse:
sandiotech.com
Notice that it has little joystick controllers (3 in all) mounted on it. Moving these allows you to control a 3d object on screen. Apart from this it functions as an ordinary laser mouse.

When I tried it out it took a lot of getting used to. Much more than a spaceball where very quickly you get the felling of 'holding' the object that is on the screen. Both a spaceball and this mouse have 6-degrees of freedom however with a spaceball everything is analogue so the more you move the spaceball the faster the object moves. This didn't seem to be the case with the mouse.

Also with a spaceball it is very easy and intuitive to do multiple operations at once, like zooming, rotating and selecting. This is very very hard to do with the mouse. Now that 3D Connection is selling a device for £30 I do hope that games developers choose to support this device rather that the '3D mouse' concept!

Another 3D connection video is here.

3D Connection's site:
http://www.3dconnexion.com/

[Amero]

I tried the 3D mouse too at the event. It certainly was different to a spaceball. I use
the 3D Connections spaceball in the YouTube clip along with a mouse for Rhino modelling. It's very effective as while you're zooming and rotating and whatever with the ball you can select, drag and manipulate the object at the same time with the mouse in your dominant hand. With the 3D mouse everything would have to be controlled via one hand. I’d like to see a 3D mouse or next gen spaceball handle that with the ease and control that the mouse/ball combination currently offers.The mouse I used was not a patch on what I’ve been using in the office for years but maybe it could be the next level of a standard mouse? Schools for instance would benefit from having one for interactive learning as when would they ever use a spaceball other than for Google Earthing in geography? Interesting though.

[rob james]

I was looking at those a while back, thing is is you use Max or maya one hand is mouse hand and the other is "keyboard shortcut" hand. So I'm not sure how you can use it. With Maya especially as you spend all your time with the alt key held down.

Is rhino different ?

[AC]

3D connection has a range of 'spaceball' products. The super cheap one (space navigator - £30) doesn't have any buttons so is only suitable for simple apps like sketchup and google earth.

However their more expensive products have programmable shortcut buttons that you can set to operate any feature of the software you are using.



The top of the range space pilot is very expensive, however it has an LCD display to tell you what you have set the buttons on it to do, you can even set each button to do more than one thing ! If you have £330 you never need touch an alt key again.

http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/3a4b.php
http://shop.3dconnexion.co.uk/

[AC]

Video of the spacepilot. Notice that as well as programmable shortcut keys it even has ctrl, alt and shift keys built in !

[AC]

I found a video of the SpaceNavigator (£30) being used with maya:


It looks like although it doesn't have lots of programmable shortcut keys, a customisable on-screen shortcut menu can be opened by using a button on the side of the device.

[AC]

There are two buttons on the base of the unit (see picture below). The right-hand button simply opens the Control Panel for the 3D Connexion software; this allows you to adjust the way the Space Navigator works, adjusting settings such as the device’s sensitivity, and direction for pan and zoom controls.

By default, the left button simply resets your view to whatever corresponds to north within the program that you’re currently using. However, it can also be set to perform other tasks, such as saving the current document or pressing the Alt or Space keys.

http://www.itweek.co.uk/personal-computer-world/hardware/2174146/re...

[AC]

Now this is a 3d mouse ! But I'm sure if you played a game with it your arm would hurt after a while ?



http://www.novintfalcon.com/video.php http://www.novint.com/novintfalcon.htm

[AC]

I've found the only 2 people IN THE WORLD who can operate the sandio 3D mouse ! You have to watch this video to the end. Even they are struggling to sell it, and admit that with a 1st person shooter it 'isn't the best way to aim and shoot' !!! However the big USP is that because you are only using one had you can eat, drink and smoke with the other !

http://sandiotech.com/

[AC]

Moving around a 3D model in Photoshop CS3 with a SpaceNavigator:

[AC]

another nice example of using the SpaceNavigator to move in a 3D pdf. In this case here in a 3D car confiurator from BMW:

[AC]

Playing Half-Life 2 on a computer using a Wii controller thats connected via bluetooth and GlovePie.

[AC]

3D Haptic pointer, controller and 'chisel' arm