3Dconnection Space Navigator PE cheap
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3Dconnection Space Navigator, a device well known by the gourmet 3D designers is now cheaper than ever. The exact price depends on where you live. I ordered mine for 67 Euro's today, including 19% VAT and UPS from Germany to Amsterdam. Much older versions, with RS232 serial cable even held together with sticky tape, sell for more on Ebay.
http://www.3dconnexion.com/
and when you're ready to buy
http://www.3dconnexion.com/buy/6a.phpposter-Maggy
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I have a spaceball 5000 doesn't work with sketchup though...
do you find this really usable in workflow? have you used it yet?
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3DConnection tells on its site that it's compatible with Sketchup. I ordered it today, so no I've not yet been able to test it. But I will and promise hereby to report my findings.
I'm very picky in this field. My left arm is handicapped, I'm not using it for typing hotkeys or holding shift, ctrl or alt while moving my cursor. That's also why I use te Kensington trackball with 11 buttons. With a standard mouse or 3 button trackball I would not be able to use Sketchup.
So IF my conclusion is that it's ideal, it must be great for someone with two healthy arms.
If not, than my next message will be "Space Navigator for sale".poster-Maggy
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have both a Space Navigator and the smaller Space Traveller. They are compatible with SU on my Windows XP system. I don't know if they work with Mac OSX. I keep the Space Navigator on my desk plugged in but don't actually use it much. I should.
Regards, Ross
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These things only work when you control it with your backbone. If you do not use them on a daily basis, you have to think over and over again "I want to zoom in, now I want to rotate" etc. You can't control a pen, a mouse, a keyboard that way. Your backbone controls 99% of your every day actions, the human brain is actually less smart than we think.
Years ago I had no mouse or trackball, just a tablet. In those days I was able to do fairly complex things with it, like using a virtual keyboard or lift my pen, jump to the exact area where I could click a menu or icon and so on. Very fast. I actually even did it while talking to a client, looking the client in the eye. click, click, click. Most people thought that I was just nervously clicking on random places till they either got a glimpse from my screen or saw their receipt roll out of the printer.
But since I have a trackball the poor tablet is just gathering dust... I would have to study it for weeks to get my old skills back.poster-Maggy
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Maggy, I'm much the same as Ross. I have a
Space Traveller sitting in it's box. I tried
it but went back to the mouse. I think it
would be very valuable BUT it requires some
determination ...... 'back bone'
Mike
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Hey, no fair. No Africa of South Africa available on the purchase page. Oh well, I'll just see how you ppl fare with them and maybe, just maybe I'll get one later one through other channels.
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Maggy I would be really interested to find out how you get on with the Navigator.
Like you I also only have use of one arm, so anything that may help my workflow would be be fantastic.
Dylan
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It's going to arrive next wednesday.
Ross or Mike, don't you want to sell yours to juju?poster-Maggy
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Juju -- Given you are having trouble obtaining one I'd be happy to give you one of mine. Contact me by PM and we can discuss how I can to get it to you.
Dylan & Maggy -- The Space Navigator is intended to be held in one hand while the other uses the mouse. The hand holding the puck would not need a lot of mobility but it would require good motor control as the device is sensitive. I really don't know how useful they would be if you want to switch one hand between it and a pointing device. I suppose it might work and be helpful in the context of having only the use of one hand. I agree it is well worth trying it to see.
Regards, Ross
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can still lift light stuff with my left hand. Zoom, pan and rotate do not require very accurate motions like sketching. We'll see. Currently I'm not able to move and pan at the same time. Last week I had to copy one component to 256 different places, requiring a lot of panning, hitting escape, continue moving and so on...
poster-Maggy
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Thanks for the info Ross, it sounds like it would be no good for me with having no function of the left arm.
Dylan
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I have a Space Navigator. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty intuitive and you can fly around both 3D space and 2D images (it replaces the Windows picture and fax viewer with its own version). The only trouble is that to use it properly you need you left hand pretty much permanently glued to it. This raises obvious conflicts with the fact that normally in SU you have your left hand almost permanently poised over the Shift and Ctrl keys.
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Alan & Coen -- the real question is do you think it could be useful to people like Meggy & Dylan who currently do all their SketchUpping with one hand?
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It might be useful. I tried it one-handed, just using my right hand...and it will enable you to fluently pan and orbit. Obviously, you have to let go of the mouse to do this. Whether or not this is actually more convenient than simply mouse-clicking the orbit or pan icons, would be a little difficult to say.
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I agree Alan. I do think it is worth a try for Meggy and Dylan. It could make things easier. Meggy might even find it works okay with the limited mobility of her left hand.
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You also can use the Space Navigator as a kind of mouse in Windows - look here for the drivers: http://rbc.duckinegg.com/ (and see the thread linked from the word "here"). But you will come in conflict with the Sketchup extension when using it together.
It's very fast when using as a mouse. Left and right click would be nice with the push and pull function. Scrolling is possible with turning (turning? hmm...). Because I'm using a Marble Mouse (trackball) with bad scroll function, it's nice to have such a large scroll "button", which also can be really fast.
azuby
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@ross macintosh said:
Juju -- Given you are having trouble obtaining one I'd be happy to give you one of mine. Contact me by PM and we can discuss how I can to get it to you.
Thanks Ross, very kind of you to offer.
I'm a bit of a gadget junkie, this sounds great. But I'm not sure if this will help / impede workflow. I think I'll take a rain-check if you don't mind. I would like to hear the feedback from users first before comitting. I've bought hardware in the past on the premise that it will increase workflow / productivity (even had a trackball at one stage) but 9/10 it ends up being in the way. I still have a graphics tablet around somewhere that I take out from time to time for the odd time that I require it's functionality.
Speaking of which, does anybody model using a graphics tablet and pen? If so, how does it work for you?
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As I told y'all, I have a trackball with 11 buttons and a wheel, so no, I do not need my left hand on the keyboard. For those shortcut key combinations that I'm not able to make on my trackball, I use a small USB numerical keypad with redefined keys. Num lock on/off switches between numbers and shortcuts.
For typing text of course I do need a keyboard, so I use a very small one with no numerical part. If nobody else would ever use this computer, it would have Dvorak RH layout. Unfortunately I do have to share it.
My navigator arrived yesterday. After installing the driver, the setup launched GE and I was able to fly over the landscape like a true aviator, both right and left handed. No need to reconfigure. It is very sensitive and even the slightest touch makes it go in the right direction... in GE.
In SU it's an entirely different matter. I've been fighting with it for hours, changing settings to more sensitive, less sensitive, switching zoom/pan directions and so on. At first it felt like I should be able to use it with my left hand but after just 15 minutes it hurt like hell. Touching the device has an immediate effect (zoom/pan/rotate) so I should hover over it with my hand.
By putting it next to my trackball I can even control part of the movements with my thumb while keeping my fingers on the trackball.
Two tips:
-start using the Navigator in SU in a cloudy sky dome with opaque ground.
-use the views toolbar and create scenes (view tabs). A lot. An accidental motion of the navigator can send you to outer space or deep down under.It'll take quite some fine tuning to get the same control in SU as it gives in GE. But it does give good control over zoom, pan and rotation without switching tools even for single handed sketching. I'll have to find a way to mount it to the desktop. It's heavy, but changing orientation can be a disaster. Someone who doesn't pay attention to the orientation of this very rounded object will probably never get used to it.
Fortunately the ugly blue led can be turned off.
My current settings in GE: default
in SU: reverse all directions, dominant on, pan fastest, zoom fast, other settings slower than default (some will probably change). Buttons zoom iso and zoom selected.It is as useful device for single handed SU, but it'll take some time to learn how to handle and optimise it.
poster-Maggy
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I had one. For a day. I sent it back - never could get the settings dialed in while using SU, and I switch between supported and unsupported software so often it was driving me nuts. It might be a different story if more software developers (like modo, Vectorworks, etc.) supported them, and if my brain wasn't hardwired for left-handed shortcuts at this point.
Hope it works out for you, though, Maggy.
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