3d Mouse - Anyone tried it?

slipsius

Just got sent this link in class. Thought it was kinda cool and was wondering if anyone had tried it, or uses it or what?

http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacenavigator.html

I think its a cool idea, but at the same time, I feel it would just take your hand off the keyboard / your hotkeys, and slow you down.

Thoughts?

confracto

I worked with someone who had one.
er, well, the one with 12+ programmable keys and a small lcd display
so the taking hands off keyboard thing didn't apply.

he used it for solidworks
he liked it, and found it useful.

I tired it for half an hour
it takes getting used to, and was a bit twitchy.
but it did feel like using your other hand for changing views and shortcuts seemed more elegant that having to change view and point with 1 hand and just shortcuts with the other.

Ace-Angel

How are you supposed to model with that? Unless I missed something (like a small hand clamped set of keys next to that, which are easily toggleable on the fly) wouldn't this tool be doing the opposite of modeling and hence forcing you to move from one peripheral to another?

I mean the Google thing was cool and all, and maybe even for a Flight-Sim game, for working environment? I suggest a 3D Pen instead.

Xoliul

I used the one just below the crazy top end one with LCD, so it had buttons. They were super hard and uncomfortable to press (not to mention I had to use my pinky to press them), so i preferred to use the keyboard, rendering it not very useful.

Nysuatro

I got one from autodesk, used it once ...

SnowInChina

we use them at work for navigating around our models, needs getting used to, but is really comfortable and fast
i would guess its better suited for a game designer, whos placing all the assets in the game