3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator PE (Personal Edition) 3D Navigation Device USB ( 3DX-700029 )
by 3Dconnexion
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator PE (Personal Edition) 3D Navigation Device USB ( 3DX-700029 )
Customer Review: A handy tool for making movies in Second Life
Summary: 4 Stars
The SpaceNavigator PE is perhaps most useful if you have a goal in mind beforehand -- for example, a current 3D app you use is driving you crazy when you try to interface with the keyboard + mouse, and you've noticed the SpaceNavigator is supported. The price is very reasonable and I wouldn't be surprised to see that help this device and others like it get more popular.
I primarily use the SN with Second Life, where it's supposed with version 1.20 (the current "main viewer", altho some people still use 1.19.1). Yes, I'm the Torley Linden you may've seen mentioned who made video tutorials for this, and I recommend Residents who want to get the most out of the SN should visit, learn from, and add to: [...]
One of the BIGGEST benefits to having the SN with Second Life is smooth, versatile camera tracking motion for machinima (creating movies inworld). In Flycam mode, you can pan, zoom, and do all sorts of crazy things like spin the camera around until you get drowsy. By customizing the setup, you can increase the cam feathering so it coasts along, or have it act more "tightly". You can (one of my faves) also disable Auto-Level and tilt it slightly so the horizon isn't perfectly straight -- this adds a subtle (or more dramatic) yet very welcome dynamic nuance to still snapshots, too.
I don't use the Avatar movement or Build modes very much at all, but they're available if you want them.
The build quality and overall design is pretty sleek. At the beginning, I was a bit confused by how easy it was to combine actions, and kept pushing and twisting the cap at the same time -- as I got more experienced, I found this to be very handy, but keep in mind that the SN does give you "6 degrees of freedom" and you can articulate yourself smoothly with that.
For Second Life, at least on a Windows-based system, remember that if the SN is moving your avatar, even if you aren't touching it, you may need to go to the 3DxWare Panel in Windows' Control Panels and calibrate it. Another thing is specifically in SL, in Edit menu > Preferences > Input & Camera tab, make sure to setup things to your taste in there. I do have the latest version of the official drivers installed so the blue light indicates when it's on, as well as compatibility with other apps, but it should work fairly well with SL out of the box.
Have fun! ;D
Customer Review: Save your money, deceptive company.
Summary: 1 Stars
Ok this pretty much goes for all of these 3DConnexion products. I am an owner of the pro. Basically it starts with the website being super deceptive because they list almost every piece of 3d software in the book basically leading you to believe that the thing is compatible. What they don't tell you is that unless there is some sort of software version number listed, it is not compatible. For instance, their website would lead you to believe that the product is compatible with Motionbuilder and it is not. Next, you get burned on the 64 bit thing. Who in our industry works on 32 bit anymore? The software requires our computers to have superpowers and basically this company is behind the times. In the end the number of apps that are actually compatible with this thing are basically a hand full. You are also basically at their mercy to develop drivers for other programs out there. You would think that they would make it simple to just add your own programs to the mix so like if you wanted to use your 3d mouse for say MS office apps, you could just assign the buttons and "joystick" moves to keystrokes and create a profile (similar to what you can do for a Wacom tablet) No dice. It's like buying a wacom tablet that works only with Photoshop, but not with Illustrator (yeah this thing works with PS, but not AI), you would be frustrated. This is a great idea really it is but it is being implemented by a company that is too obtuse to see the true potential, or has some other agenda. Please do not waste your money on 3dconnexion's very slick looking products, you will be disappointed.
For people considering the pro. That LCD screen is absolute garbage. It does not even work for anything other than showing you what keys you have assigned to your buttons if you customized the buttons (for the few apps that it supports). It was supposed to show you if you have email and your task list in Outlook etc, except it is not compatible with recent versions of MSOffice. Again, for something this expensive you would expect them to be on the ball. Sorry again. There are other 3d mice out there, Logitech makes one for instance. Consider them over this.
Customer Review: 3D mouse works great, with caveats
Summary: 5 Stars
The 3D Connexion mouse works great as long as you keep a few things in mind. 1:It does not replace your main input mouse, its made to work alongside it.
2:To get the Space navigator PE to function with all applications, you need to register the device with connexion through their website once you receive it.
The PE pricing does not include Tech support so you cannot call and ask why the device does not work as promised. You have to figure it out. (If you are not computer savvy, you may want the SE version. (It includes Tech support}
There are applications that are being updated daily to work with this input device and registration allows you to download the latest drivers for those applications. First thing, quality construction, weighted with enough engineering so the piece seems solidly built. I still do not let my younger kids gang bust with the device as they don't have the dexterity for subtle handling required for movement changes. The big movement is "pulling up" on the cap to zoom out and "pushing down" on the cap to zoom in. They either end up levitating the whole device with their pulling force or smashing down on the cap. Leave them the old "mouse. It cost much less to replace if That gets broken. I got the Space Navigator PE to work with Google sketchup 6 when I design component placement for media rooms and out of the box the Space Navigator would not work. Once registered, the connexion download supplied the interface and drivers needed for skethup to work and the input device works great. Drawing in sketchup is now just as fluid as drawing in any 2d drawing application because moving your object/space can be done with the "other" hand while you use your predominant hand to work the drawing tools. Using the device in Google Earth literally gives you the feeling of "flying" into your world. I navigated flight through the canyons of skyscrapers in New York City, south of Central Park, with the nimbleness of an swallow. (if nimbleness is a word.) Haven't tried the "pay-per-viewer" MS Virtual Earth yet. The trifecta would be if I could get the mouse to work with Quicktime VR. That would be good for real estate navigation. Workin on it.
Customer Review: good and bad
Summary: 4 Stars
when you buy a new controler for your PC there are always a few factors to consider, for one you are extremely used to your mouse and keyboard and after years and years of use almost everything seems less functional.
I can't think of any other device like that which would be so natural to use (it takes perhaps about 15min to become comfortable with it)
It works with 3D packages rather nicely, (I am using Maya PE and Sketch Up), for other application it doesn't do much, ocasional pan/zoom capabilities are typically less useful than using a mouse to pan or zoom
The device seems a little too sensitive on default setting (which can be corrected), however the control panel leaves a lot to be desired, other than sensitivity you have an option to reverse the axis and that's pretty much all, considering that even the default integration with a few programs assingns axes differently (especially moving up down in screen space can be achived by pushing forward/backward or pulling up/pushing down dempends which software you are using)
Unfortunatelly the device does not have a generic driver which would act as HID device, after working in 3D package for a few hours you switch to internet explorer for a moment and your hand goes automatically to this little device to pan... and nothing happens...
There is also a little issue with pan and tilt, since both are essentially done by pushing the controler at different angles, it's not uncommon that you end up tilting and paning in the same time while your intent was just pan, while device seems to have a small dead-zone which allows you to pan without changing the camera angle, this dead zone appears to be not enough in many cases (and it's not configurable)
In short, it's an amazing concept, well designed from hardware perspective, poorly designed from software perspective, but still very handy to have in 3D applications which supports it
Customer Review: Why?
Summary: 3 Stars
I won this product in a computer aided design contest, and I eagerly awaited receiving it. When I did, I immediately wondered what the point of it was. I work as a design engineer, and most of my work is done in SolidWorks. But I just don't see any real use for this product, even if it worked well...
The basic concept of this device is you use your non-mouse hand to control the orientation of an object in 3d space using the SpaceNaviagor, while still using the mouse to do other things. This is not possible. You really can only do one at a time (unless you can somehow look in two different places at once). If it was significantly difficult to orient an object with a mouse, maybe this product would be useful (save you some time opening up menus, etc), however, it's not. Simply by holding down the middle mouse button I can rotate the view of the object with my mouse in Solid Works. Most other programs have similar shortcuts. It's also a lot easier to use a mouse than with the SpaceNavigator. I don't think this is a matter of a learning curve either. It is just hard to use the SpaceNavigator.
The product is heavy, but not heavy enough. You end up lifting it off the table while using it, which gets frustrating. It's also both too sensitive, and not sensitive enough, all at the same time.
I like the look of this thing. I like having it on my desk ("Wow, that guy must be good, look at that fancy mouse thing!"). But I don't like using it, and I can't recommend it to anyone, definitely not at this price. If I had bought it I would have returned it, but it's free so I'll keep it.
In the end, it works, but not well. It has good driver support and most every program I load up supports it (Rhino, SolidWorks, Inventor, etc), but it's a product with no real market segment.
PS-I did have fun flying through google earth with it though ;-)