3Dconnexion 3DX-700028 SpaceNavigator 3D Mouse

There are some older reviews from MAC users who experienced problems with this device, but you may not experience those yourself with the newest software/updates available online. Then again, I have only tested it on Sketchup. Also, I contacted 3Dconnexion directly with a question and received a detailed, thoughtful response less than 2 days later (even though I bought this item used and had no purchase order number). This is a fine piece of interface technology and is designed/built very well. The feel is solid, sturdy, and responsive. It also appears to be very sensitive, adjusting magnitude on screen depending on the levels of pressure applied. A very precise and smooth instrument. I cannot imagine a better way to navigate around 3D space. I use this for architecture and industrial design. I feel like this provides me with my own personal helicopter to "fly" in and around my models at will. You can customize the settings to your liking. It took me a few hours to find an intuitive combination of controls (that worked for me) and overcome the learning curve, but now I can't imagine modeling without it. My adjustments are listed below. If you don't like the default settings, try reversing the axes and adjust from there (NOTE: I always invert the y-axis in video games, so I'm naturally inclined to control the Space Navigator the same way... your mileage may vary). 3D Mouse Right change to: 3D Mouse Left 3D Mouse Left change to: 3D Mouse Right 3D Mouse In change to: 3D Mouse Out 3D Mouse Out change to: 3D Mouse In 3D Mouse Down change to: 3D Mouse Up 3D Mouse Up change to: 3D Mouse Down 3D Mouse Tilt Backward: change to: 3D Mouse Tilt Forward 3D Mouse Tilt Forward: change to: 3D Mouse Tilt Backward 3D Mouse Roll Left: change to: 3D Mouse Roll Right 3D Mouse Roll Right: change to: 3D Mouse Roll Left 3D Mouse Spin Clockwise: change to: 3D Mouse Spin Counter-Clockwise 3D Mouse Spin Counter-Clockwise: change to: 3D Spin Clockwise If you are on the fence, give this thing a try. I wish I had it in college. It cuts down on my drawing/modeling time and allows me to rotate, spin, and navigate a model without changing tools or exiting out of a command. A must have for all heavy illustrators, 3D modelers, etc.

Nicely packed in the box inside and egg type create holder. I installed the driver from the web, even though there is an included disk. I always go to the web just to make sure I have the latest release. With the drivers the trainer, training objects to manipulate, setup program, and documentation all installed. It is nice and heavy so it sets firmly in place (it is not a mouse or a joystick). First I tried it with DAZ Studio 4.7, everything worked to control the camera but all directions are reversed (it’s from the object point of view); it is easy to change in the setup just invert the direction by checking each axis invert box. Then I tried Photoshop (CC 64 bit, CC 2014 64 bit, and CS6) in 3D mode worked great by default. Then I tried Maya 2013 and it worked great by default. Next I tried LightWave Modeler 2015 it worked great by default (it was for LightWave Modeler that I bought this unit for after seeing a demo video using it with LightWave). Then I tried Poser 2014 gaming version and it worked fine. None of the iClone 5.5 or 6 or the 3DXchange worked; same with Carrara 8.5, Hexagon 2, Bryce 7, Silo 2, or Blender worked. When I say they didn’t work it is by default they didn’t work. The setup software will let the user set the direction, and speed along with using macros for each direction. The ones that work out of the box are pre-programed in the driver software, the others the user has to set up.

It's heavily implied that this mouse has something of a learning curve. Not if you are a gamer! If you're used to navigating with your left hand (d-pad or WASD) while your right hits the buttons or uses a mouse, this mouse will be incredibly intuitive for you and you will be able to use it almost effortlessly. The included software lets you invert any axis you like to suit your needs, and you can also choose between Y-axis (pull up/down) and Z-axis (push back/forth) for the zoom control. You can quickly and easily set up a separate custom profile for each application. Productivity increases substantially because you no longer have to switch between navigating and modeling. Your main mousing hand and arm will thank you for dividing the labor a little more evenly! The mouse itself is nice and heavy with a rubberized base, so it stays put. The puck on top is responsive and the sensitivity and acceleration can be adjusted via software. The two programmable buttons are all I really need for my work and they are in a good location, I never hit them by accident as I so often do with extra mouse buttons. The whole thing is solidly built and of good quality, nothing seems flimsy. The only negative for me is that this mouse doesn't work with ZBrush - but that fault is on Pixologic, not 3Dconnexion, so I'm not docking stars for it. SpaceMouse users have been begging Pixologic to add support for years now, but there is no sign of it ever happening. Definitely a dealbreaker if you are exclusively a ZBrush user.

This really improved my navigation around a CAD program. I can get the to same views using just a mouse, but this speeds things up by enabling multiple axes at one time and I can more precisely position the part or assembly rather than putting up with it slightly being off-kilter like I often did with the mouse. At my company the larger Enterprise version is often paired with CAD workstations but this less expensive version is perfect for my use at home. Although they aren't listed as supported applications on the 3Dconnexion site, my SpaceNavigator works great with ViaCAD Pro v10 and Chief Architect Home Designer Suite 2017 on my MacBook Pro under Mac OS Sierra. In Home Designer Suite it makes it possible to "walk through" a multi-story structure without having to switch between pan & rotate tools. I also tried it with success with Google Earth and Trimble Sketchup. I decided to get this instead of the smaller notebook version after seeing some cautions about the notebook one not being quite heavy enough to stay in place. I also purchased a carrying case for this and this version is still portable enough to be included as part of my regular mobile computer kit.

I work on CATIA V5 8+ hours a day and started having full-arm aches and pains in November 2010. I ordered an Evoluent Vertical Mouse for my right hand in December and the pain went away. Fast forward to July 2011, the pain is back. I bought the SpaceNavigator to spread the workload between my Right and Left hands. It works great for panning, zooming and rotating. The actions on the screen are very fluid and smooth. I was worried that the unit would slide around on the desk but the motions required to input a command are so subdtle and the base looks to be a solid, stainless steel ring, it does not move at all. I still have pain in my right arm, but not as intense as I am not performing click-hold-drag operations with my mouse during pan/zoom/rotate, the SpaceNavigator takes care of those functions. It is not a cure-all, as other environmental factors contribute to my discomfort (desk too high, chair too low), but my company's ergo team is working on those issues. One drawback, I have to manually launch the software BEFORE I launch CATIA V5 in order for the SpaceNavigator to work. If I forget, I have to close, launch the software, and reload my parts. Could be because CATIA V5 is not listed as a supported software or because of how CATIA V5 is setup at my company. Not a huge deal, just something to get used to. UPDATE: I contacted 3Dconnexion about CATIA V5 issues listed above. Never heard back from them. Good product, horrible customer service.

First off, let me make one thing clear about this review: I did not buy this device to use with any commercial software (CAD, etc). I bought it to use with my own homebrew software project, so my review concerns only the hardware and device driver - i.e. I cannot make any claims either way about how well it works with any popular applications. That being said, let's put the most important info out there first: the device itself seems to be really well built (though I can't yet vouch for how well it functions in the long-term). It feels well-made; very sturdy, nice materials, with a really good 'feel' to the springs in the cap. Control is smooth and precise, certainly better than any joystick I've ever used - it just feels slick. The installation process was simple and the training/demo software supplied in the box is decent enough. I particularly liked the 3D tetris-style puzzle - that really shows off the flexibility of a full 6DOF device, and definitely helped get me comfortable using it. I'd say it only takes a couple of minutes to get the basic swing of using the device, and a couple of hours to get comfortable performing subtle or complex motions. I was pleasantly surprised at how quick this was - especially given that I am not using the device with my dominant hand (3DConnexion recommends putting it on the other side of your keyboard to your mouse, and that does indeed seem to work well). The driver supplies a 'control panel' utility which lets you tweak how the device behaves when used in specific applications. The behaviour and layout of this utility seems sensible, though the degree of control offered is a bit limited; you can't remap axes arbitrarily, nor adjust dead zones, nor apply mouse-style 'acceleration'. As I say, though, this was irrelevant to me, since my personal software ended up communicating directly with the device. As an aside to any other developers interested in using this device: the sample source code in the SDK works as intended, and provides you with all the example code you need to get started talking to the device from your own software. The 'API' is very simple (if you use 'raw input' mode, as I did) and the device driver happily doesn't do anything 'clever' behind your back which could cause you any headaches. You just get the raw numbers from the device that you'd expect. I had the device working in my software within an hour, with another hour or two spent tweaking it to 'feel' really good (dead zones, power curves, damping, etc). Given the above, this could be a 5-star rating... but there are a few minor faults which bring it down to 4 stars. Here they are: - rotations counter-act translations: for example, while pulling the cap fully to the left (causing fast leftward panning), twisting the cap from above will actually reduce the strength of the panning. Each pan axis is adversely affected by 2 of the rotation axes in this way. In a 6-DOF device, all degrees of freedom should be fully independent, so this interaction is not ideal and can be annoying when performing certain camera maneuvers in 3D space. Applications can correct for this to some degree (I added hacks to mostly hide the problem in my software), but I doubt you can rely on most applications doing so (I tried Google Earth briefly, and it did not correct for this problem at all). - tilting is limited by the base: if you press the cap down, this limits your ability to tilt the cap forwards/back/sideways, since it collides with the base of the device. That's another unfortunate coupling between degrees of freedom which can limit certain camera maneuvers (e.g. moving downwards while tilting the camera up) - I think the base could do with being *slightly* heavier, especially since there's a lighter notebook version for people who would prefer a lighter option. A heavier base would allow me to use the device slightly more comfortably; I could use fewer fingers, since I wouldn't have to prevent it from sliding. - I find the buttons on the device hard to use, given how they are positioned. They would be much more accessible to me if they were semicircles built into the rim of the cap. These definitely seem like minor design flaws which could be fixed in the next version - there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this device as a concept. Even as it is, I would whole-heartedly recommend it to a friend. Or stranger, actually.

With so many positive reviews, I cannot quite figure out if I just have a bum device. Both my workstation and laptop are Windows 10 fully updated and always have all updated drivers installed. For some reason every couple of days/weeks the mouse just stops working. The device shows its active, the lights stay on, and I have even connected with tech support. There is really only one driver on their website at any given time, so I have what I am supposed to have. I have tried unplugging and re-plugging, but it is so fussy, there is no real way to figure out why it disconnects. Spending $100 on a mouse is fine, if the thing can be trusted to work. This is not something that I take lightly as I use this for my job day to day. I have stopped using it, and it just sits on my desk. I will occasionally touch it and see if it works again, but without being consistent, I have gotten on without really wanting or needing to use it. Very disappointed in the product. One main reason I got the USB wired version was to never have connection issues, I guess I was wrong. If you are planning on buying...good luck. I cannot say I am the only person out there having these issues. But it looks like most folks have really good luck and like it. For reference the software I use daily, AutoCAD 2019, Inventor 2019, SketchUP 2018 Pro, Chief Architect.

Update: I recently had to re-install this on a new computer, and the current software install, 3.16.3 is packaged properly and installs fine right from the download, so my -1 is mooted. It is indispensable in the programs where I use it. I just wish more supported it. --- The Mouse came nicely packaged, but of course, it needs its drivers installed before you can do anything with it in the few programs that can take advantage of it. This was to prove the most frustrating part of installing it, but I found a solution which I will share. As of this writing, the driver version is 3.16.1. The CD in the package was version 3.7.18, which dates back to 2009. This isn't too horrible a problem, because the first thing the installer does is prompt you to check for a newer driver. Does it download the driver? No, it sends you to the web page. Does it send you to the driver download page? No, just the home page. But again, not a big deal, it's easy enough to navigate to the appropriate download link. This is fairly standard. Where it goes terribly wrong is after you download the file. The download, "3DxSoftware32_v3-16-1_r1342 . exe" will extract the installer, put it in your temp files, and run it. The big problem there is the installer it extracts, "3DxSoftware32 . exe" is part installer, part archive, but it doesn't know that. Immediately the installer will ask you to insert a disk because it can't find "layout.bin". Since you don't have that disk or that file, you're stuck. Installation fails. The one previous installer available suffers the same problem. After considerable poking around, trying to open a few stray .cab files that appeared, I found out about a free program called PeaZip on SourceForge. It does things that 7-Zip doesn't. And aside from opening .cab files, it did the one thing I needed to make this install work. I was able to select "3DxSoftware32 . exe" and choose "Open as archive" and then I did "Extract all files" into the same directory, and THERE was everything I needed to do the install. Run the setup file that appears and the install proceeds just as it would from the CD. Keep these files, because you might need to re-install if you add new 3d software that needs specific plugins. Having successfully slain the installer dragon, everything else from there was smooth sailing. I ran through the Demos, played the Puzzle game, and then set off into Second Life to try the Flycam. That was tremendously cool, but clearly I need a better video card. Next I went into Google Sketchup, apparently now owned by Trimble, and navigation was so much easier than trying to remember what chord of modifier keys would make things move the way I wanted. I have yet to use it with Blender, but that's next on the agenda. It is not a substitute for the mouse. It won't control the arrow cursor (although apparently there is a beta driver out there that might) but for 3D programs that support it, it is the perfect thing for moving your view around and manipulating selected objects along and around all three axes. So it's an adjunct to your regular mouse. It is delicately sensitive, a feather touch is all that is needed to fly your viewpoint around. So once you get past the terrible driver install issues, it works precisely as advertized. I can see it as an essential tool for anyone who works with 3D models.