Spacenavigator used within Archicad 14 and Revit 2013

[craig_j]

I have a query regarding the 2 dimensional use of Spacenavigator within Archicad and why it does not support panning and zooming like it does within Revit 2013? I use Archicad on a Mac 10.7 OSX and use Revit on Windows 7 machine.

[Bryan]

Dear craig_j ,

The behavior you see within an application would be the behavior designed into that application by the developers of that application. There would be no difference in the input, delivered to the operating system from our input device, that those applications make use of. The difference you see between applications would be the design differences of the different development teams attending to each of the applications.

Sincerely,
Bryan

[craig_j]

From my extremely limited knowledge of such things I figure that a mouse scroll wheel has the same function to zoom in and out which in turn tells Archicad/Revit to scroll in and out. Spacenavigator must some how use that same electronic signal to tell Revit to zoom in and out, which is why I don't see why Archicad cannot do the same thing as you can with Revit as it shares the same scroll mouse functions. Again my understanding is very limited but logically it seems like it could work relatively easily?

[UtaSH]

Hi craig_j,

the SpaceNavigator is always sending the same data depending on how you move the cap - not depending on the application. The driver sends packages with the data to the application and it's the application that processes the data. The implementation of the navigation was done by the developers of Autodesk and Graphisoft. Did you discuss the panning and zooming with them as well?

[Bryan]

Dear craig_j ,

The mouse scroll wheel does not tell ArchiCAD anything, however ArchiCAD can poll it to determine what use it wants to make of it. When you are running Revit, Revit can poll it. ArchiCAD may or may not make the same use of what it polls as Revit does. It completely depends on what the developers of ArhiCAD have decided to do with the signals it polls from the the scroll wheel. The same would apply to input from any and all input devices. It is completely up to the design of the application. If you want to know why you are experiencing a certain behavior in ArchiCAD, you would need to contact the ArchiCAD developers. If you want to know why you are experiencing a different behavior in Revit, you would need to contact the Revit developers. The behaviors are all directly dependant upon how the application was designed, not by input devices.

Sincerely,
Bryan

[craig_j]

Thanks for clearing that up Bryan. Basically Archicad is not listening for the scroll in scroll out function of the Space Navigator, where it does listen out for the scroll in and scroll out signal of the mouse.