What is this? I can't find any mention of it in the manual. I'm intrigued now :).

Martin.

Well, I'm still intrigued and I still can't find it :confused: Can someone point me in the right direction as to where to find it, please?

Thanks.
Martin.

Have you found it yet Tom, or are you just teasing me? :D

Martin.

I don't like the little ones (Space Navigator) all that much as there isn't a palm rest and there are only two buttons, but I use the Space Pilot with the left hand and a Logitech Trackman with the right and this works very well if you have a responsive graphics card. These devices will be killer with the direct manipulation functionality that Tim showed us for V6, but are better with additional buttons for modifying commands.

There are some apps that let your you use an iPhone as a numeric keypad (wireless connection) and there are probably some that are more generic. Either way, I would like to have the Shark menuing optionally on a connected iPhone/iPad as a UI device.

the other tom

In case someone isn't aware of what Tom and I are referring to, here's a link:

http://www.3dconnexion.com/spp/

As they always say in the fine print, your mileage may vary.

I agree that $400 for UI hardware for a $99 package doesn't make much sense, it can for a $5000 package. Either way, Shark/ViaCAD users are limited to the SpaceNavigator control.

the other tom

OMG SORRY! I forgot to say HOW to get to it. In the File menu (in the windows version, at least), to go Shortcuts. Then, at or near the very end of the category list of things you can assign shortcuts to, there is one called "Viewball".

(Intrigued, and having only ONE or two remaining keys i could assign, i assigned Viewball a letter and then saved and returned to the drawing view.)

Hit the key you assigned to activate Viewball. A smallish panel with a disc in the square palette will appear. There is a toggleable staircase, and if toggled, an arrow will appear. On the periphery of the circle but on the paletter are around 8 arrows, four being cardinal or outward pointing as on a compass. The other four are curved along the disc.

The up and down arrows tilt the VIEW plane (entire model space) so you can in increments you set nudge and tilt your model when the mouse it just to jumpy, and when the physical 3D devices are absent or don't work for you (maybe they're too heavy to carry, or damaged, or whatever).

The peripheral, curved arrows rotate the model rather than tilt. You can choose an axis/point in the model, or the entire model space (by it's center, i think). (The keyboard arrows still function to pan the model space up/down/left/right.).

On the palette you'll also find a stopwatch-like icon. If you enable that and then press one of the Viewball arrows, you can make your model rotate/orbit about its model space or the point you designated. This way, it makes for a KICK-ASS demo if you have a nice model to show off. It'll stop if you click in the model space.

There are a few more tricks there, which you can determine by toggleing between the center-button stair case and the center-button curved arrow, the peripheral arrows and the top-area icons of the palette.

Intriguingly, i found NOTHING cross-referenced in the user manual for VC Pro 5 or 6. I at first surmised it was a recent addition via patch, but searching the forum led to threads dating back to 2007. Hehehe...

It doesn't appear to be in 2D/3D :(:(:(

Why, you're very welcome. I'm glad the code's there. I actually have the SpaceNavigator (earlier i think i misstated, possibly having said Space Ball), and while it's nice, it's HEAVY to carry around in my laptop backpack. Since i tore up the should straps on the backpack through running after buses and trains, i obtained a carry/shoulder bag and it has 1/2 to 1/3 the volume my backpack (a Targus backpack that could entirely contain my current bag, which is about 18 to 20 lbs on an average day).

Lacking that space, SpaceNavigator is on the floor betwen a wall and unread magazines, in it's hard plastic container (which protected it in my backpack, but i could not find a way to forever protect the wire from coiling/uncoiling damage). I haven't used it in maybe 9 or 10 months, after all the struggling i went through to get that thing to work in Linux...

Now, ViewBall is my favorite view manipulation widget.

If my SpaceNavigator were lighter and UBS-wireless i would still use it. I already ruined a mouse due to excessive wear and tear on the wire-mouse junction. I ruined my laptop's original power supply that way, too. Now, i'm thinking i need to spend $38 more on a 3rd supply that i keep in my laptop, and keep one on my desk. Ditto for the mouse.

If 3DConnexion's latest laptop-friendly 3D mouse has Linux drivers i might go back to 3DC, probably because it feels nice to feel like a pilot and the reduced need to take the 2D mouse away from what it is doing. But, if Tim and crew add all sorts of killer features to the ViewBall, then the hard/software makers might scream if every other CAD maker devalued the hardware. But, that means the hardware makers have to rethink their business model, i suppose.

Then again, the SpaceNavigator is nice mainly *because* it is heavy and the 3D puck/moving parts grip and feel tactile and good. The model they made for laptop people is smaller and seems less attractive to me.

One alternate way to enhance the 3D view in ViaCAD might be to take a page from Open Source. In KDE4/Plasma/Compiz/Beryl, we can push the mouse into a corner or to the edge (user-assignable) and the desktop turns into a cube, a sphere or a cylinder (user pref). Clicking and dragging the right mouse button on the sphere, we can rotate/orbit the pentagonal/square/etc volume of the desktop. On clicking the the middle button, the polygon flattens. Alternatively, the pressing of or releasing of other combinations will do that. But this might be useful in a CAD model space to pan/orbit a model.

There are lots of [URL="http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=numeric+keypad"]low cost USB numeric keypads[/URL] available that will give you the functionality that you are looking for.

I have used a $13 generic numeric keypad attached to my MacBook. Much easier for entering numbers than using the MacBooks keyboard.

On a seperate note, has anybody got any experience with using a tablet and stylus, possibly combined with the bottom of the range Space Navigator, as I am looking for alternatives to a mouse that will have more natural ergonomics.