Mac OS X support?

jtuttle · Post by **jtuttle** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:17 am

Hey--
The new SpaceNavigator looks great. Is there any way to use it on Mac OS X 10.4?

-- J.P.

znissan · Post by **znissan** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:55 pm

Hello J.P.:

We are currently looking at a Mac solution for SpaceNavigator, which will most probably be available in the first quarter of next year. Please stay tuned for more information on this board. We will also look for beta testers.

And, if you can give us feedback on the applications you are running, that information is always welcome.

Ziva Nissan
3Dconnexion, Inc.

jtuttle · Post by **jtuttle** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 6:04 pm

Thanks. I might be willing to beta test; if I know I'll have a use for a SpaceNavigator, I might be willing to buy one now (or sometime soon).

As for software:
Mac OS X "Tiger" 10.4.1
1.33GHz iBook G4, 512MB RAM, 60GB HD
(I really hope you guys decide to support PowerPC. There are still (probably) millions of PowerPC Macs still being used...)

Software I'd want to use it with:
- Blender 3D 2.42 (soon to be 2.43 within a month or so)
- Preview/Acrobat (zooming/panning)
- Office
- games (USB HID emulation?)
- as a mouse??
- general panning/zooming -- I have a trackball (Mouse-Trak Professional, in case anyone's curious), and it's awesome. Except there's no scroll wheel. Having a 3d motion controller would make a great scrolling/panning device.
- having general mouse/keyboard/gamepad emulation would be great

As for using it as a mouse, Blender is rather keyboard-intensive; initially, I somewhat laughed at the "one hand on a 3d motion controller, one hand on a mouse" setup; however, now I've realized that if I can just have part of the motion controller work as a mouse, I can just use it in my right hand.

And of course, Google Earth

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now. You guys are awesome. This is the best thing you can hear from a company that until now was Windows only -- 'we're doing a Mac version next quarter and we need beta testers'. You guys rock!

-- J.P.

P.S. If you guys are really board, I do have a SpaceOrb 360 and a serial-to-USB adapter...

Yeah... I know, you don't support those. The SpaceOrb wasn't working too well last time I checked (loose connection?), so I'll probably be buying a SpaceNavigator eventually.

P.P.S. I hope you guys don't run out

They look awesome. A game controller driver (USB HID on OS X, Game Controller stuff on Windows) would be really neat, especially with stuff like the Nintendo Wii coming out...

P.P.P.S. Hmm... do you add more 'P's or 'S's? Anyway, I think my post is getting rather long; it's the full height of my visible web page area in Firefox at XGA res...

podrick · Post by **podrick** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 9:35 am

Excellent news about OS X. I'm switching to Mac but ordered the Space Navigator yesterday anyway. It'll give my old PC a reprieve until the Mac drivers etc are ready...

hclbaumbach · Post by **hclbaumbach** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:46 pm

I will buy a 3DConnextion product when there is Mac OS X support. I'd love to see Mac support for the SpacePilot, but the SpaceNavigator would be sufficient.

Critical app:
SketchUp (Pro)

Would-be-really-nice apps:
modo
Imagemodeler
Vectorworks
Maxwell Render (Studio)
FormZ

Edit: Ideally, the 3DC device(s) would work with Windows apps running on Mac hardware via virtualization.

a.c · Post by **a.c** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:11 pm

The new SpaceNavigator looks great. Is there any way to use it on Mac OS X 10.4?

Indeed (although it requires a little work on your part). I use a SpaceNavigator with my MacBook Pro via ControllerMate. I have to custom code everything - but the interface is fairly user friendly and it recognizes all six axis inputs.

hclbaumbach wrote:Ideally, the 3DC device(s) would work with Windows apps running on Mac hardware via virtualization.

Ideally they would... however in reality they do not. I use SolidWorks 2006 on my Mac... however XP under Parallels won't load the driver. Sucks. I'm attempting a work around using ControllerMate right now... but let me tell ya it ain't easy.

http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:42 am

znissan wrote:Hello J.P.:

We are currently looking at a Mac solution for SpaceNavigator, which will most probably be available in the first quarter of next year. Please stay tuned for more information on this board. We will also look for beta testers.

And, if you can give us feedback on the applications you are running, that information is always welcome.

Ziva Nissan
3Dconnexion, Inc.

I'd be very interested in helping you beta test the OS X drivers. I've developed a couple of applications (iPhotoToGoogleEarth and Geotagger) that work with Google Earth and use it extensively for tagging my photos and plotting a hike across america next year. Researching the route is made much easier with Google Earth so I'm spending a lot of time zooming around in there.

a.c · Post by **a.c** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:10 pm

I'd beta too

podrick · Post by **podrick** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:22 am

I'd be interested in beta testing also.

I had a blast using the Space Navigator on my old PC last night (Google Earth) and the sooner I can use it on my iMac (which has a bigger, higher resolution screen) the better

davidmac · Post by **davidmac** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 3:10 pm

I would be very interested in beta testing as well. I have just purchased a Space Traveller for my studies at university after using an old Space Ball over the summer at work. I am currently using it for Solidworks in Windows, but would be interested in using in for eDrawings and Photoshop in Mac OS X.

seacrets · Post by **seacrets** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:08 am

I have recently purchased a SpaceNavigator (I also have a Spacemouse Plus XT serial)

I am a daily Google earth pro and skethup user so I'd be glad to join the Mac beta tester team. (Intel versions)

Francisco

cArlo · Post by **cArlo** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:04 am

I'm a Sketchup pro and google user,
Let me know , I can test the beta any time.

iMac 20" intel and PBG4 17"javascript:emoticon(':P')

seacrets · Post by **seacrets** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 12:17 pm

a.c wrote:
The new SpaceNavigator looks great. Is there any way to use it on Mac OS X 10.4?
Indeed (although it requires a little work on your part). I use a SpaceNavigator with my MacBook Pro via ControllerMate. I have to custom code everything - but the interface is fairly user friendly and it recognizes all six axis inputs.

hclbaumbach wrote:Ideally, the 3DC device(s) would work with Windows apps running on Mac hardware via virtualization.
Ideally they would... however in reality they do not. I use SolidWorks 2006 on my Mac... however XP under Parallels won't load the driver. Sucks. I'm attempting a work around using ControllerMate right now... but let me tell ya it ain't easy.

http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

I have just received my SpaceNavigator and I can confirm that it IS WORKING under Parallels Workstation (at least in the latest version). Please make sure that you have the USB Controller enabled in Parallels and you ENABLE the SpaceNavigator USB device (there is a little blue USB icon at the bottom right window of parallels, click on it, and select Spacenavigator).

I'm using the latest driver 3.0.7, windows xp sp2 in a Macbook core duo.

Applications tested so far: Google Earth and Google Sketchup

cArlo · Post by **cArlo** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 12:25 pm

I prefer to go native in intel mac

ruigato · Post by **ruigato** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:35 am

Hello,

i'm willing to beta test the two versions: Intel and PowerPc

my main applications are:

Archicad 10 (this one is the main one)
Logic Pro
Ableton Live
Photoshop
Illustrator
Motion

MacBook Pro 2ghz / 2 Gig RAM / 7200 rpm

Dual G5 2.0 Ghz / 2 Gig RAM - OsX 10.4.8

thank you for the mac support idea

3Dconnexion Forum

Mac OS X support?

Mac OS X support?

Mac OS X Support

I'd beta test as well!!

Beta Test