Sketch up won't work with SpaceNavigator, why?

[jeremy]

Hello,

I cannot get it to work with Sketchup. I have tried several versions, including the most recent version on Google's site. I don't what I am doing wrong (if anything). Does it need to be activated in a preference somewhere?

Any ideas??

I also can't find the 'Picture Viewer' anywhere on the install CD, is there a site to download it?

I bought it for Vectorworks 2008 (they claim it works with it) but it does not work very well with it - maybe that is related?

Thanks for any help.

OSX 10.4.11

[Bryan]

Dear jeremy,

What specific version of Sketchup are you using?

What picture viewer are you looking for? The Sketchup Picture Viewer or the Windows Picture Viewer or another 'Picture Viewer'?

I don't find VectorWorks 2008 as listed as an application that makes use of our 3DMice. Who specifically claims that VectorWorks 2008 makes use of our devices? And what drivers are listed in VectorWorks 2008 System Requirements?

What specific version of 3DxSoftware do you have installed?
Do you find functionality in the demos?

Sincerely,
Bryan

[jeremy]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply.

1.)
Google SketchUp 6.0 (6.0.1145) Pro & free 6.0 (6.0.277) Pro are the versions I have tried.


2.)
The 'Picture Viewer' I am looking for is the one mentioned in your literature and right on the 3Dconnexion's SpaceNavigator box. To quote> ".....or pan and zoom your favorite photos using 3Dconnexion's Picture Viewer. " I can't find the application anywhere.


3.)
Vectorworks has advertised extensively about your products integration with their software. Here are some of the links:

Their website:
http://www.nemetschek.net/

To quote from their website:
"Support for 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator
The SpaceNavigator is a new 3D mouse that provides a powerful way to navigate around your model. With it, you can simultaneously pan, zoom, fly around, and walk through your models. Vary the amount of pressure on the SpaceNavigator to speed up or slow down."

Their brochure:
http://download2.nemetschek.net/www_misc/VW2008_whats_new_brochure.pdf

Their demo movie:
http://download2.nemetschek.net/www_movies/2008/3DConnexionSpaceNavigator.mov

Perhaps I should clarify what I meant by not working well. The spacenav. seems to only offer 2d input, which is what vectorworks is using with its mouse input. In other words when you are doing a 'flyover' you can drag the mouse to move the object. With spacenav. you can do that, but nothing else. You can't zoom in, rotate, tilt, skew left and right or up and down. You are stuck with what you had before spacenav in most modes. Not sure if any other modes work better. As the side is supposed to change modes, but it does not always seem to do that.

4.)I have no idea, how can I find out? You are using a preference (preference pane) for your software, so there is no 'about' window to open. There also does not seam to be any version in the info window on the install file so best I can give you is the name of the file is"3dxwaremacPE-v1_4_0.dmg" and I downloaded it from your site last night. I followed your sites instructions, as far as selecting the correct 'driver'



5.)Your last question is perhaps worded poorly? Are they applications you should be able to use beyond a demo? I found no functionality in them all, as they are of no use to me. But if you meant did they work? Then yes, they did work and were interesting to use. The skier photo is a great shot.

I have some other issues I would like to address once (if) I can get the sketchup and vectorworks working.

Thank you very much for helping! I truly appreciate it. Although your product is so far not exactly doing much for me, I am still hopeful it will be useful. I was able to take it for a spin with Google Earth and WOW it is an amazing product when it does work.

[jeremy]

3):Regarding Vectorworks, I have been able to select a different mode (must be in perspective to access it) and the 'unconstrained walkthrough navigation' mode does use all(I think) parts of the spacenav's inputs. However it is completely jumbled, and the 3dconnexion's preference is pretty useless to overcome it. For example if I 'spin'(twist) I get the object to roll. Which makes sense if I put the spacenav' on its side - not exactly a good idea. tilt left and right to spin object, push left and right to rotate object. Push forward goes up. Everything is basically messed up. Pull up and push down on spacenav' and I zoom in and out, which I could get used to but it sure would be nice to use your prefrences to change zoom to slide forward and back with the spacenav'. All of these could be fixed if your preferences actually let me change the settings. I SURE wish I could change the settings for twist to look left and right, and tilt left and right to roll the way the settings should be mapped. Even then vectorworks with spacenav' is still a little flakey - side button is kinda cheap so sometimes it double clicks to the wrong mode. And vectorworks sometimes 'jumps' to an odd angle - I wonder if the spacenav' is sending erroneous numbers?

I reallly can't figure out why you even have any preferences since you can't do much with it. Like why can't I set preferences for Safari? I can add it as an application but then what? You should be able set prefs' to pan up, down, left right for scroll, etc. Or why not be able to set prefs' for quicktime? you could have spacenav's twist left or right play forward or backward? Very strange that you have such a great product that does so little.

I have now read more on the posts and on the web, and wonder if the problem is that 3dconexxion is a 'windows' based company? The product seems so based in custom drivers, and requiring the individual software programs to be 'patched' to use it, that its future abilities may be limited. This is very much a software issue, not hardware. I downloaded ControllerMate last night, to see if it can fill this short coming. I think it might be up to the task - but it is pretty intense. I am not sure I wish to spend 3-4 hours to try to get it to work. ControllerMate makes you virtually program every feature and function you want by graphically dragging and dropping control, input, output etc. modules for each application you want to use. This maps an input like 'twist' to say 'scroll left/right' in an application. Which is pretty cool, but still a bit more involved than I want.

Perhaps someone at 3dConexxion could look at the controllermate product and either use some of the ideas in it for the preferences, or just write the different settings for controllermate to function with some of the more popular programs out there - in particular CAD.

Anyway, I am looking forward to some help with this from connexion soon I hope. Not sure if I should return product or not, I have already spent more time on it then I can justify. I'll hang tight for now....

[jeremy]

Update: I shut down vectorworks, and changed the device tab settings several times, clicked 'use defaults', repeated, set the 'device' to lift up and down (green arrow seting on left) and now vectorworks while in the 'perspective view', unconstrained walkthrough mode is now working correctly! Which is really weird since despite the settings in the spacenav's pref's showing the up/down to be zoom, that action pans up and down - which is what it should be. Also pushing forward and back moves you in and out(zoom) as it should. This is NOT what is in pref's so there is definitely something going on with the pref's. It could also explain why sketchup is not working. I will start=restart aps, prefs' and machine to see if it gets sketch up going.

[jeremy]

Anybody here??
Still having trouble.........

[flomotan]

Hi Jeremy,

We are currently working closely with VectorWorks to resolve the issues you've mentioned. VectorWorks has been very helpful and they are committed to making the navigation experience great. I'm hopeful that an updated version will be available soon. Please check with VectorWorks on when their next service release will be ready. I think the fixes should be in there.

For SketchUp, we've tested this with 6.0.1145 and it works fine. The only issue we've seen is if you're using a case-sensitive filesystem. SketchUp changed the folder name for "Plugins" to "plugins" and this causes an install issue for us. Do you have a case-sensitive filesystem? If not, try reinstalling the driver again AFTER you've installed SketchUp to ensure the plugin is installed properly.

[jeremy]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I tried that and Sketchup now works - sort off. It works very smoothly for about 30 seconds then gets 'jumpy' or jerky for the rest of the session. at the rate of about two thirds of a second. This is in any movement. smooth then stop smooth stop and so on. This jumpy behavior will last indefinitely, however if I change directions like up-down-up-down five or six times quickly it seems to reset it so it is again smooth. The smoothness of control lasts about 30 seconds, and than the jerkiness starts up again. This behavior is consistent with all versions of Sketchup I have. Open app's, or lack thereof have no effect.

I have tried fiddiling with stuff like I did for vectorworks, but I can't seem to get it stop 'jerking'

So... there is still some kind of issue going on....

Google Earth, and vectorworks do not have this issue. They are all smooth as silk. I have 2GB of memory and dual 2.66 intel (mac).

So thanks for sort of solving that issue. If you have any ideas I would appreciate it.

*****Any luck finding the 'picture viewer'?*****

Thanks again

[ettore]

Yes, I tried that and Sketchup now works - sort off. It works very smoothly for about 30 seconds then gets 'jumpy' or jerky for the rest of the session. at the rate of about two thirds of a second. This is in any movement. smooth then stop smooth stop and so on. This jumpy behavior will last indefinitely, however if I change directions like up-down-up-down five or six times quickly it seems to reset it so it is again smooth. The smoothness of control lasts about 30 seconds, and than the jerkiness starts up again. This behavior is consistent with all versions of Sketchup I have. Open app's, or lack thereof have no effect.

I have tried fiddiling with stuff like I did for vectorworks, but I can't seem to get it stop 'jerking

What if you lower the speed for SketchUp in the SpaceNavigator pref pane?

[ettore]

Yes, I tried that and Sketchup now works - sort off. It works very smoothly for about 30 seconds then gets 'jumpy' or jerky for the rest of the session. at the rate of about two thirds of a second. This is in any movement. smooth then stop smooth stop and so on. This jumpy behavior will last indefinitely, however if I change directions like up-down-up-down five or six times quickly it seems to reset it so it is again smooth. The smoothness of control lasts about 30 seconds, and than the jerkiness starts up again.

What machine are you using? Is it an old one?
Do you see this behavior with very simple objects AND very complex objects, invariably?

What I see in my tests here, it that on complex objects, the motion can get a little choppy, but "reliably so" (i.e. if it's choppy, it's uniformly choppy), not jerky.

[jeremy]

I just tried it and this is what I found:

The speed between jerks does go slower or faster as you would expect, so the speed is working. However the interval between the jerks is still exactly the same regardless of speed. Even though more image has been processed between jerks. The jerking is time based.

[jeremy]

What machine are you using? Is it an old one?

It is a three month old mac pro as mentioned above:

I have 2GB of memory and dual 2.66 intel (mac).

I also have upgraded video cards, and 1.7 terabytes of HD

I think I know where you are going with this, but it is not the complexity that slows it down. It likely would if I tried to make an extremely complex shape, but this jerkiness is there with NO object (just the figure of a man and the axis) As mentioned above, Vectorworks, and Google Earth is smooth as silk.

Also note that the jerkiness sometimes goes away completely as mentioned above. I get about thirty seconds of smooth, then the jerkiness returns. If I wiggle left-right-left-right(any direction back and forth)....etc as mentioned above it sometimes goes away again....for thirty seocnds
then back to the jerkiness.

I really appreciate your help on this, but may I suggest you read the whole thread, as I think you are missing some of what I have already posted.

Thanks again!

[kenrinc]

Jeremy,

Did you ever resolve this? I have the same issue in sketchup. The SN is unusable, the minute you try to do something it moves with this very slow jerky motion. I've tested it on complex and non complex drawings and it works better with non complex but if I go into a complex drawing and make it non-complex (by deleting compents, materials etc...) it still doesn't fix it and to prove that it is the SN, I can easily grab my mouse and orbit 360deg in one fluid motion with no jerks or slowness.!! Works fine in Google Earth.

3dconnexion: Besides getting the above to work, the ability to remap the axis for the device is manatory. I cannot believe that I can't remap the axis on this thing.

Ken-

[EMoeller]

I have a new MacBook Pro 15" with latest OSX 10.5.2 running Sketchup 6.4.120 and have no problems at all. You can remap the axis to whatever you want, just go to System Preferences (on your dock), click 3DConnection under Other (lower left side) and adjust from this menu.

Good luck, ERIC

I cannot get the Spacenavigator to work with Google Earth running the FlightSimulator, but I'll check other forums or posts to see if any has solved that problem.

[kubat]

I just wanted to second the observation that using the SN in SketchUp (latest version as of 3/29/08) has very jerky behavior. The frequency is about 1Hz. I'm running on a one month old MacPro.

-r