OS X Mavericks, Form-Z and SpaceMouse Wireless

[FredWalk]

All,

Hi,

First my configuration :
- MBP retina
- OS X Mavericks
- Form-Z latest release
- and since recently Spacemouse wireless

New to this forum, and to 3D devices, I've received two days ago my new controller, the spacemouse wireless.

I've first connected the spacemouse with no drivers loaded on Mavericks, and it emulates a mouse ( move, clicks, and scroll by rotating the knob ).
Under this configuration, Form-Z does behave exactly the same.

I've then installed the latest version of the driver ( from 3DConnexion website/service ) for the spacemouse on my mac, and that's definitively where it fails

- no more mouse simulation ( I've desperately tried any possible settings into the driver to try and enable that )
- in Form-Z, not even the zooming works now, the mouse only shows the radial menu when clicking on buttons, and shows erratic behaviours when rotating, or zooming ( I also have tested the Form-Z 7.3 settings for the 3DConnexion plugin. This is not a device sensitivity issue, I've tested )

however :
- the controller works fine with the demo applications provided with the mouse

I have some other 3D modeling software for architecture, and the 3DConnexion mouse does show similar behaviour as in Form-Z ( with or without driver being loaded/installed )

Has someone an idea of where to look at first ?

I must say it's quite disappointing...

Device is not so cheap, information is hard to find, and although the device looks nicely made, OS X software you provide seems very poor and not sustainable ?

[FredWalk]

Right,...

Further down the route of investigations, I found it out partially.

In my case the device seems to require proper overall speed control in order to work properly ( I had to set it to max in OS X driver, in the formZ/bonzai3D selection - it's mapped to my software already, in there )
In FormZ, I had to set the sensitivity to 50% in the 3DConnexion panel.

With this being set, I'm finally able to rotate objects in a fluid and convenient way ( hurray ? ) translation seems also sorted by this. I'm nevertheless surprised that I had to perform such settings on a brand new device. anyway..

useful information available :
ftp://ftp.formz.com/pub/formz/PDF_files ... Plugin.pdf

[FredWalk]

Well, since I was critical, my point about the driver remain valid.

- It is not very friendly to use ( application selection, default values seems to only apply on the current tab )
- It's not possible to remove the by default application settings in the top dropdown
- why isn't there a function to switch between 3D and mouse that could be assigned to one button ?
( quite frustrating when you open radial menu, eg )
- loosing a native device ability when installing the vendor's driver is really disturbing to me

On the device, on the other hand,... Nice piece, handy also.
So many efforts on hardware spoiled by poor driver