This doesn't bide well for the future.....

[ngomes]

Why not add a confimation code for each post like you do for registering to use the forum.

CAPTCHAs are broken and bots eventually learn to fetch codes. We're actually considering removing the feature from the registration page since it does little to prevent bogus registrations.

What we have found that works very well is asking people to through a procedure that is specific to a given forum (and not implemented generically for all).

[shaund]

I really do find it hard to believe that I started this thread nearly a year and a half ago and it's the 2nd most viewed after the RBC9 driver thread - combined views of over 350K.

Doesn't this seem to indicate that you really don't understand what your users want?

When I first started this thread my point was to ask for a driver that gave me the ability to run my spacenavigator with other applications - albeit without the full bells and whistles that some of the formally supported applications.

Someone else has citied Wacom's control panels for it's tablets as a good example of what we want and the RBC9 driver is as good a start point as any but I don't want to have to rely on a pet project when this ability should have been there from the start.

I can see this thread still being active in another year as history would suggest that we'll all be sitting here looking at the posts of another newbie asking if he can use this great device with application X and being on the recieving end of the standard reply of 'no'.

How many posts with 'i'm not going to buy your device until you sort it out' does it take for some one to actually formally produce something that we have been asking for now for the last year?

[Magic Man]

Yep, amazing isn't it. My feelings are still the same. My Navigator is beside my laptop glowing away - it gets used in Poser and Sketchup - and that's it.

I've got the RBC9 driver but would just prefer a company supported solution like the rest.

In the meantime I've bought a 3d mouse (won't mention the name otherwise it will be removed) which has universal drivers and will also probably get the new Logitech G13 gaming keyboard for other uses (again, universal drivers) - the Navigator would be a great compliment to them in many areas but, alas, it sits alone...

[vas]

just before the new year...

having spend the last hour reading though the two most visited threads of the forum, I'm afraid I'm with lmlloyd.
It's not what the device is for, it's a 3D device and v.good at it (if only supported properly on 3D apps. I'd rather have 3DCon ppl work hard in persuading /working together with the likes of Autodesk and the other big producers of 3D apps rather than trying to figure out "reasonable" conventions to scrap 4DOF in favour of the rest 2 and use it as a simple mouse...
I've got two spacemice XT USB for the home and work computer and a PN and I've recently changed from AutoCAD to Revit and I'm royally f*cked/stuck! Don't work, fullstop. So I'm simply cursing my way through rotating and zooming complex building models hoping for what? Autodesk realising that they could spend a few days work and create the hooks for 3D mice like they did in ACAD, yeah right... How long, f*ck knows, probably not even in the next release of the s/w...

IMHO, that's the main problem, together with support for VR applications and 3D web stuff like Cortona Player for VRML97 and X3D stuff.
My .02eurocent and a happy new year to all with the right driver presents for all ppl needs...

V.

[Magic Man]

having spend the last hour reading though the two most visited threads of the forum, I'm afraid I'm with lmlloyd.
It's not what the device is for, it's a 3D device and v.good at it (if only supported properly on 3D apps. I'd rather have 3DCon ppl work hard in persuading /working together with the likes of Autodesk and the other big producers of 3D apps rather than trying to figure out "reasonable" conventions to scrap 4DOF in favour of the rest 2 and use it as a simple mouse...

Why?

Why wouldn't anyone think it would be better for it to do that but also give you the additional fallback of a generic driver to use in programs that don't support it? That way "3DCon ppl" could carry on "persuading/working together with the likes of Autodesk" to get a proper driver sorted but, in the meantime, you could at least use it rather than it sitting idle. Do you prefer it not to work at all in an application rather than have at least some functionality, however basic, until such time as the manufacturer of the application decides to implement a driver...?

[vas]

I think coming from different backgrounds, seems like it's causing a few problems in communicating clearly oneself to the others.
I apologise and I'll try to explain my engineering approach:

When I work with the likes of ACAD, REVIT MAX, I do have and I do use the proper mouse on the right hand (being a right handed person) and I do have the spacemouse on the left of the keyboard to quickly tilt, turn, zoom etc the 3D model as I go around working with it.


having the spacemouse simulating a mouse in REVIT for example is nothing useful to me as the only thing it will help is pan/zoom that can be easily achieved with the middle mouse button...
I'm not playing games so I cannot comment on the usability there.

Having said that I'll install the driver mentioned in the other thread and see.
Maybe there should be a thread discussing the ways that the spacemice could be used in unsupported apps and draw a conclusion on what's reasonable to expect from them. Mind you we're talking about defining a new metaphor for HCI using a 3D device to navigate 2D screen space. Typicaly it used to be the other way around...

cheers

V.

[Imp_ulse]

Heck at this point i would be happy if the 3D con devs would assist the RBC9 creators (thou i'm not sure if anyone is still active in developing it) in making a 64bit version.

As far as i can tell they are having issues with creating the signed driver the 64 bit version of windows requires.

Id even pay to get a polished version of RBC9 with 64bit support.

NOTE, even thou the 3D mouse doesnt show as a device in the joystick control panel (which would make it usable in games btw, it is a HID device after all) it still manages to interfere with with several "games for windows" titles. I have to unplug it to be able to play them.

Seems rather rude to not give us the tools to use it in our games yet let it still interfere with them lol

[jwick]

Could any of you who would like to participate, do as this kind fellow did and use this other thread to mention what joystick apps you are using.

Many thanks.
Jim
3Dx Software Development

[JTRch]

Hi Layer01,

We understand your frustration and, I can assure you, we are striving to have more applications supporting our devices. Ultimately and like any company, we have limited resources and an installed base of users to support.

It's very simply: make a full cutomize setting for the device, like other Logitech products. Let me as user to define, which axes simulate which keyboard buttons for games, like this tool:

http://www.deinmeister.de/spmcur_e.htm

The only thing which are not nice on this solution: no smoothes zoom in strategy games like command&conquer.

It could very simply if your really want use the potential for gamers. It's my opponion, that when a private programer can offer a solution like this, that a professionel software producer can also offer a better solution with an little effort. I know that in this crysis budgets are very limited. So nobody awaits the your company develop this for free. Make a more dear gamer edition, and I an other etnhuisastic gamer will it buy!

sorry for my bad english.

[ash]

and another goes by while this glowing paperweight sits mostly unused
left it unplugged for months because it didnt work in the majority of my apps I use.

3dConnexion, please implement the functionality of the user made reassignment application, and a set of virtual mouse keyboard and joystick drivers, so the user base can assign the 3d mouse to work as they choose in their apps. Alongside the existing driver, and an intelligent system tray to switch between them, the 3d mouse could gain access to an exponentially larger range of functionality.

You continue to hurt your business, and your stakeholders by not providing an official solution. I will not buy another one of your products until their is an official company app for reassignment of of the 3d mouse to act as a other devices. I appreciate the rich experience that an integrated driver provides to an application, but I still might want to use the device as I the operator see fit. Please remedy this lack of customization, so I can buy one of your better models, and recommend them to people.

[ash]

sry, that should read another year goes by, please edit.

[Phaedron]

Yes, it would have been a merry christmas if 3dconnexion had actually done something about generic support. Alas, indeed another year goes by of missed marketing opportunities.

[Cafim]

Sadly, what we have here is the unique ability to not see what is standing in front of you. We have established that what the user base wants it, tallied at tallied now at 550K+ views. We know that it is eminently possibly, courtesy of RBC9. We have a company that has a product that it wants to sell, apparently, and should be able to cobble together a programmer or two, diverted from making 20 odd barely functional drivers.

On the other side, the company seems to be adamant that what the user base wants is not possible. It's rather like Ford saying that you have to accept that wheels must be square, and the only option is to have its users convince the US department of transportation that it must make roads square compatible. Even though users have made nice round wheels already, and if all Fords had round wheels, they'd sell twice as many.

I once owned two SpacePilots. I wanted to use both, but because of they uselessness of 3DConnexion's drivers, that was not possible. So I sold one. I would like to use, and really like the idea of the Pro. And would certainly buy two of those, if I could use both on a single machine.

Clearly, either 3DConnexion does not want to sell more units, or it is functionally inept.

Suggesting it has something to do with the 3D user base is equally flawed. I'm part of that user base, and find it unfathomable that you can't make a switch (software or hardware) that will make only two axes functional. Or that you could map the buttons in windows generally. Or that you can't use both devices on a single machine, one as a mouse, one as a 3D device.

Wacom is a good example of how these drivers should be. They have issues, sure, but at least they have some sense about what their users want. I sure won't buy another 3DConnexion product until you get your heads screwed on right. If you put as much though into your driver programming as you did into your marketing and product design, you might actually pay for a whole lot more coolness, rather than the ongoing pile of dumb we have now.

[Magic Man]

...and find it unfathomable that you can't make a switch (software or hardware) that will make only two axes functional. Or that you could map the buttons in windows generally.

You can lock axes via the checkboxes in the 3dxware app or directly via the buttons on the SP (if assigned to the corresponding functions)

You can also map the buttons to key presses as desired according to the config you have loaded.

[TomD62]

Yes, please give me a generic driver that lets me map axes to keypresses or the rate of keypress or mouse -x y in a specific spot on the screen.

Example, Google Maps, why is there no driver for streetview? It's crying out for a 3dxware driver. The Explorer VB thing does not work with Firefox.