New (and now former) user Feedback

If you have questions or comments concerning any non-support related 3Dconnexion topic, please use this forum.

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
dleute
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:24 am

New (and now former) user Feedback

Post by dleute »

I was really excited to get my space mouse. However, in just a couple hours, I realized it wasn't going to work for me. So I have packed it up and sent it back. Here is why:

My use case is switching between several applications. Some of them have space mouse support (like fusion 360), some do not. The ones that didn't (like safari) I expected to be able to override controls and make simple scrolling and radial menus work. I couldn't even figure out what the safari support that exists was doing. Twisting one direction seemed to change tabs (run through them blazingly fast). Twisting the other seemed to go backwards through history (and I think this was the "forward" twist direction). It felt like nothing short of insanity. Tilting up seemed to scroll, but tilting down didn't. Etc.

Unfortunately, radial menus only work in fusion 360 and the built in 3dconnexxion apps. Even Home Designer Pro (another app I use regularly currently) which has support for the space mouse doesn't get pie menus. And the support is pretty spectacularly bad. Floor plan nav is reversed from camera nav and the overrides seemed to do nothing in preferences. Plus no pie menus.

And while we are on pie menus, where are the 8 section versions that exist on the site? Couldn't find that at all.

Then I realized that if I had Home Designer open, all spacemouse movement was happening in that app and in whatever app I was actually trying to use. So I would switch to another app (like fusion 360) come back to home designer and the plan would be zoomed out and off the screen. Etc.

I had bought the kit with the CADMouse and mousepad as well. In fact, the reason I bought this kit was because I needed a new mouse, getting the space mouse was supposed to be the icing on the cake. The CADMouse was pretty good. Pie Menus worked everywhere, settings seemed to override nicely, and I likely could have set it up with my custom functions. (Previous mouse was a Roccat Kone XTD. very very good at customization). I also wanted wireless.

The CADMouse is really quite good (I like the 3rd mouse button, but clicking a wheel has always been great for me). I am likely not willing to buy that separately given how terrible the space mouse was. I will likely go back to logitech for a g703 or g903 gaming mouse which allow all kinds of customization. (Roccat basically dropped support for mac, so they are out)

I am providing this feedback because the device itself was out of this world good. The way it worked in fusion 360 and the included demo apps was impressive. The demo app itself let you flip between object, camera and helicopter modes. It made so much sense. I'm not sure if the same was possible in fusion 360, but if it allowed you to quickly flip in all apps, it would be spectacular. The weight and feel was excellent. I was already getting used to the fusion 360 nav and could see why people find this thing indispensable. But I don't stay in one app all day. I use many. And the selling point for me was "use the same interface no matter which app you are working on". That clearly isn't actually going to work.

The problem is the software should have been better. I can't for the life of me figure out why Radial Menus and basic movement wouldn't work everywhere as they did with CADMouse. 3DConnexion should step up their game and make the space mouse more universally usable with their own software.

Anyway, it's back in the box waiting for pickup. I don't know if there was something wrong with my mouse, or if the above is the expected user experience. I hope not. Either way, it's not an option for me at this time. My advice to others is if you are a single app user primarily and your app works well with space mouse, go for it. It really is fantastic when it works.

--Derrek
Post Reply