I’m exploring the hardware solutions for manipulating the model in 3D. I see that the 3D Connexion Space Mouse Pro Enterprise is the “gold standard”, but (1) it’s 400 bucks and (2) I’m not a huge fan of trackballs.
What other solutions are there? Is there anything that’s more like a glove or a finger overlay? Or some other method of using the other hand for basic 3D navigation while using the mouse for detailed work?
I use a 3D Connexion Space Mouse, not the enterprise but just the simple 2 button puck. It’s a bit less expensive and offers the same control of the geometry without all the surrounding buttons. The space mouse is decidedly not a trackball, and does not replace the need for a three button mouse in the other hand.
Just to be clear, the Spacemouse is not a track ball. It is a puck that moves the camera. Standard input is still done with your standard mouse.
Yeah, that’s what I need, to move / orbit / zoom the camera with my left hand, while clicking on other things with the right hand - without having to: move the cursor from the object - to the toolbar - clicking on the zoom/pan/orbit icon - moving the cursor back.
The Space Mouse does that - navigates you round the model and changes the viewpoint or zoom level.
Even without a Space Mouse, you should be using a three button wheel mouse. I (well, almost) NEVER touch the pan, orbit or zoom icons.
Orbit - click and hold the middle button/wheel, and move the mouse. Pan - again click and drag the middle button/wheel, but hold down the Shift key to toggle between Orbit and Pan.
Zoom - rotate the wheel to zoom in and out.
Was the idea to utilise a laptop’s Trackpad (for camera orientation) ever taken up by Trimble?
What about adding Strafe and “superman mode” to SketchUp’s navigation (ie, first-person)?