7 ms·

I'm a mechanical engineer and my favorite way to interact with my computer is with my SpaceMouse [1], a sort of joy-stick that you can pull or rotate in any dir

by elil17 4y ago

I'm a mechanical engineer and my favorite way to interact with my computer is with my SpaceMouse [1], a sort of joy-stick that you can pull or rotate in any direction to drag, spin, and scale 3D models. You can also use it to fly around Excel spreadsheets or scroll through web pages. One thing that I love about it is the grip I can use - it's the "precision" grip that the author discusses in the article, and it gives me a lot of fine control over what I'm doing. The other day, I saw the haptic smart knob on Hackaday [2]. It's a force feedback rotating knob with software defined detents and boundaries. If someone could combine the SpaceMouse with the smart knob, I think the resulting multiple DOF force feedback controller might just be the input device of the future. [1]: https://3dconnexion.com/uk/product/spacemouse-compact/ https://3dconnexion.com/uk/product/spacemouse-compact/ [2]: https://hackaday.com/2022/03/13/haptic-smart-knob-does-several-jobs/#more-526563 https://hackaday.com/2022/03/13/haptic-smart-knob-does-sever...

jkestner 4y ago
The SpaceMouse is a great piece of interaction design/mechanical engineering; makes CAD much less painful. (Never tried it on a spreadsheet!) The key is the mechanical springs in it which provide just a bit of resistance without impeding precise control. It has a bit of a learning curve, kinda like when Macs reversed the finger scroll gesture on trackpads, but then it becomes part of my left hand while my right hand mans the mouse.
- elil17 4y ago
  Honestly I did not find the learning curve that bad. It took me about 15 minutes to get as fast with the SpaceMouse as I am with a regular mouse. However the skill ceiling is high and there's a lot of potential to get really good with it.
iratewizard 4y ago
I was going to write you off as one of those weird trackball people, but then I dug into the mouse. It does look like a useful tool for CAD in conjunction with a normal mouse
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  What's wrong with trackballs?
- jeffreygoesto 4y ago
  Not only that. Nothing beats flying through Google Earth with a SpaceMouse!
  - Stratoscope 4y ago
    Definitely. In Google Earth Pro there are a few settings to tweak in the Navigation options. Turn on Enable Controller, of course, and turn OFF Reverse Controls and Enable Visualization. I also like to turn on "Do not automatically tilt while zooming". I don't recall if that affects SpaceMouse, but I don't like the default automatic tilt when using regular mouse or keyboard navigation. Also if you are using a ThinkPad, be sure to try each of the three mouse buttons (hold one down and move the TrackPoint around) when not using the SpaceMouse.
  - sleepydog 4y ago
    I believe there was one of these, or a device very much like it, in Google's headquarters in mountain view, as part of a wrap-around google earth display that lets you zoom around 3d space.
- elil17 4y ago
  Perhaps weird, definitely not a trackball person!
zwieback 4y ago
Back in the day at hp we had "knob boxes" for the then relatively new 3D CAD systems. Some MEs loved them, others did not. Here's what they looked like: http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=684 http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=684
- seltzered_ 4y ago
  While we're talking about HP, it's also worth noting the HP Sprout PC they tried from 2014-2017 that facilitated projecting (and then 2d/3d scanning content) on a 'touchmat': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprout_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprout_(computer) , https://youtu.be/GZMeY8leQBM?t=137 https://youtu.be/GZMeY8leQBM?t=137
  - zwieback 4y ago
    The best part of Sprout was the "turntable", which allows auto-positioning an object at various angles relative to the structured-light 3D camera. I was able to snag a couple and use them with our other 3D acquisition systems.
- Findecanor 4y ago
  Knob boxes have had a comeback, for controlling photo values in Lightroom. There are plugins for using generic MIDI controllers (for musical instruments) that have knobs, sliders and buttons. Then there are also dedicated controllers that do basically the same thing, but with specialised labels on the controls.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I'm curious as to whether or not anyone has any comments on that wild Microsoft Surface "mouse," or "knob," or "dial," or whatever. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface-dial/925r551sktgn https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface-dial/925r551sktgn
- ckz 4y ago
  I own one! I'm a UI/UX designer who was historically very invested in the Surface ecosystem during the early Win8/10 era, so this was a day-1 curiosity purchase for me. As a physical object, I like it a lot. It's not _perfect_, but it has a great weight, the Dial has a satisfying resistance (like a 70s stereo knob), uses AAAs, and the haptic feedback is solid for a digitally-triggered vibrating motor (vs a literal ratchet). What I find, however, is that it's a superior consumption tool vs creation tool. It's at its best when being used as a single-function knob. Great for sitting at a desk while reading a whitepaper, or perhaps controlling volume while listening to music. Day to day I use a mouse with a stepped-wheel, but the smooth scroll on the Dial makes it my preferred way to handle longform content. Keeps a long article flowing. However, it has not become an indispensable part of my workflow. That may just be me. I need to pivot between Windows/macOS/Linux over the course of a day, so a lot of its proprietary-tech promise is wasted and I've built fewer habits. I'm also not sure offhand how good the integration is with design tools after the initial fanfare around Adobe, Surface Studio, etc. Other tricky part: It's bluetooth. Once it's awake and in-use, that's...acceptable, if you aren't actively looking for tiny bits of input lag. But if you need it on-demand (sudden noise from the speakers, etc.) and you haven't used it in a while, it may be a couple seconds before it's responsive to that first input. Still, it _is_ intriguing enough to me that years-on, it's still on my desk and is one of the only bluetooth devices I own, much less tolerate using. I think it's at it's best when it's a context-sensitive linear actuator with some light multifunction capability vs a new paradigm.
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    Did you ever own a Griffin PowerMate[1] to compare it with? They were out in 2001 as a USB device I always wanted to play with but never had any reason to buy or use. In 2018 they were discontinued and replaced with a Bluetooth version, by the looks of it. [1] https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/8ad6a841-3639-429a-8163-9f378d174e77.dc8531c0232dc8e73241ac492108e9f7.jpeg?odnWidth=1000&odnHeight=1000&odnBg=ffffff https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/8ad6a841-3639-429a-8163-9f3...
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
A tree of code scopes is a graph, and you have one per module, plus a navigation history, which makes it 3d, even 4. A device like that could be adapted for dev.
z_zetetic_z 4y ago
Can you use the space mouse in 3 games? That would be cool! I don't do cad work, but I'm tempted to get a SpaceMouse for the sheer coolness factor.
- elil17 4y ago
  I believe someone has rigged one up to work with Elite Dangerous. There is no broad support, however. I would love to see a game designed specifically for the SpaceMouse
munificent 4y ago
Way back in 1996 at Siggraph, I tried out a "haptic pen". It was a little pen on the end of an articulated robot arm. You held it like a normal pen and moved it around in 3D space. The robot arm would give you force feedback based on where the tip was in space. It was strong enough to completely stop the pen. In the demo they had set up, there was a 3D model of a car, and you slide the tip of the pen along the surface. The haptic feedback would stop the pen from penetrating into the model so it really felt like the tip was touching the volume of a solid. Super cool experience.
- iamevn 4y ago
  This sounds like it inspired a video game controller called the Novint Falcon. Swappable grip on the end of 3 arms that could detect up/down/left/right/forward/back movement and also had decently beefy motors to give you that sort of feedback. I was super impressed by the demo software that has a part where you moved a virtual hand through various substances. Honey and molasses really felt like you were moving your hand through viscous liquid, you could feel the texture of a bumpy rock but not move through it, and most impressive to me was a sphere of ice that really felt like your hand easily slid along the surface. It got first party support in a bunch of Valve games and a decent number of games had unofficial support through mods but it never really took off and I think the company now makes medical tools with the same sort of tech. The lack of feedback in input devices beyond a little rumble is really disappointing. I think feedback is extremely important especially now that VR is starting to actually take off.
  - elil17 4y ago
    Feedback is just hard to do. There are safety concerns (anything with powerful enough feedback is strong enough to hurt you if it malfunction). It’s also pretty expensive because you need a bunch of servos and force transducers which add up as you add DOF.
- gmueckl 4y ago
  Was this pen on an arm later commercialized as the Phantom Omni?
ntoskrnl 4y ago
The SpaceMouse looks really cool! I might pick one up and see if I can get it working outside CAD software (which are the only demos I could find). Has anyone messed with it and can give me an idea where to get started? Like, what's the interface it uses to talk to software? Can you use any old joystick library like SDL2 or it is something custom?
- elil17 4y ago
  The company provides and SDK. There’s also an open source driver/SSK called SpaceNav. The device has been used as a video game controller by someone playing Elite Dangerous. It was also used as a robot controller by NASA. My one caution is that it’s quite hard to isolate control of individual axis. This is fine in CAD - if you accidentally move a tad in the Z axis while you’re trying to rotate, it doesn’t really effect anything. But depending on what you want to bind the mouse to it might make it really unusable.

by elil17 4y ago

jkestner 4y ago

The SpaceMouse is a great piece of interaction design/mechanical engineering; makes CAD much less painful. (Never tried it on a spreadsheet!) The key is the mechanical springs in it which provide just a bit of resistance without impeding precise control. It has a bit of a learning curve, kinda like when Macs reversed the finger scroll gesture on trackpads, but then it becomes part of my left hand while my right hand mans the mouse.

elil17 4y ago
Honestly I did not find the learning curve that bad. It took me about 15 minutes to get as fast with the SpaceMouse as I am with a regular mouse. However the skill ceiling is high and there's a lot of potential to get really good with it.

iratewizard 4y ago

I was going to write you off as one of those weird trackball people, but then I dug into the mouse. It does look like a useful tool for CAD in conjunction with a normal mouse

MichaelZuo 4y ago
What's wrong with trackballs?
jeffreygoesto 4y ago
Not only that. Nothing beats flying through Google Earth with a SpaceMouse!
- Stratoscope 4y ago
  Definitely. In Google Earth Pro there are a few settings to tweak in the Navigation options. Turn on Enable Controller, of course, and turn OFF Reverse Controls and Enable Visualization. I also like to turn on "Do not automatically tilt while zooming". I don't recall if that affects SpaceMouse, but I don't like the default automatic tilt when using regular mouse or keyboard navigation. Also if you are using a ThinkPad, be sure to try each of the three mouse buttons (hold one down and move the TrackPoint around) when not using the SpaceMouse.
- sleepydog 4y ago
  I believe there was one of these, or a device very much like it, in Google's headquarters in mountain view, as part of a wrap-around google earth display that lets you zoom around 3d space.
elil17 4y ago
Perhaps weird, definitely not a trackball person!

zwieback 4y ago

Back in the day at hp we had "knob boxes" for the then relatively new 3D CAD systems. Some MEs loved them, others did not. Here's what they looked like: http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=684 http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=684

seltzered_ 4y ago
While we're talking about HP, it's also worth noting the HP Sprout PC they tried from 2014-2017 that facilitated projecting (and then 2d/3d scanning content) on a 'touchmat': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprout_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprout_(computer) , https://youtu.be/GZMeY8leQBM?t=137 https://youtu.be/GZMeY8leQBM?t=137
- zwieback 4y ago
  The best part of Sprout was the "turntable", which allows auto-positioning an object at various angles relative to the structured-light 3D camera. I was able to snag a couple and use them with our other 3D acquisition systems.
Findecanor 4y ago
Knob boxes have had a comeback, for controlling photo values in Lightroom. There are plugins for using generic MIDI controllers (for musical instruments) that have knobs, sliders and buttons. Then there are also dedicated controllers that do basically the same thing, but with specialised labels on the controls.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I'm curious as to whether or not anyone has any comments on that wild Microsoft Surface "mouse," or "knob," or "dial," or whatever. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface-dial/925r551sktgn https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface-dial/925r551sktgn

ckz 4y ago
I own one! I'm a UI/UX designer who was historically very invested in the Surface ecosystem during the early Win8/10 era, so this was a day-1 curiosity purchase for me. As a physical object, I like it a lot. It's not _perfect_, but it has a great weight, the Dial has a satisfying resistance (like a 70s stereo knob), uses AAAs, and the haptic feedback is solid for a digitally-triggered vibrating motor (vs a literal ratchet). What I find, however, is that it's a superior consumption tool vs creation tool. It's at its best when being used as a single-function knob. Great for sitting at a desk while reading a whitepaper, or perhaps controlling volume while listening to music. Day to day I use a mouse with a stepped-wheel, but the smooth scroll on the Dial makes it my preferred way to handle longform content. Keeps a long article flowing. However, it has not become an indispensable part of my workflow. That may just be me. I need to pivot between Windows/macOS/Linux over the course of a day, so a lot of its proprietary-tech promise is wasted and I've built fewer habits. I'm also not sure offhand how good the integration is with design tools after the initial fanfare around Adobe, Surface Studio, etc. Other tricky part: It's bluetooth. Once it's awake and in-use, that's...acceptable, if you aren't actively looking for tiny bits of input lag. But if you need it on-demand (sudden noise from the speakers, etc.) and you haven't used it in a while, it may be a couple seconds before it's responsive to that first input. Still, it _is_ intriguing enough to me that years-on, it's still on my desk and is one of the only bluetooth devices I own, much less tolerate using. I think it's at it's best when it's a context-sensitive linear actuator with some light multifunction capability vs a new paradigm.
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  Did you ever own a Griffin PowerMate[1] to compare it with? They were out in 2001 as a USB device I always wanted to play with but never had any reason to buy or use. In 2018 they were discontinued and replaced with a Bluetooth version, by the looks of it. [1] https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/8ad6a841-3639-429a-8163-9f378d174e77.dc8531c0232dc8e73241ac492108e9f7.jpeg?odnWidth=1000&odnHeight=1000&odnBg=ffffff https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/8ad6a841-3639-429a-8163-9f3...

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

A tree of code scopes is a graph, and you have one per module, plus a navigation history, which makes it 3d, even 4. A device like that could be adapted for dev.

z_zetetic_z 4y ago

Can you use the space mouse in 3 games? That would be cool! I don't do cad work, but I'm tempted to get a SpaceMouse for the sheer coolness factor.

elil17 4y ago
I believe someone has rigged one up to work with Elite Dangerous. There is no broad support, however. I would love to see a game designed specifically for the SpaceMouse

munificent 4y ago

Way back in 1996 at Siggraph, I tried out a "haptic pen". It was a little pen on the end of an articulated robot arm. You held it like a normal pen and moved it around in 3D space. The robot arm would give you force feedback based on where the tip was in space. It was strong enough to completely stop the pen. In the demo they had set up, there was a 3D model of a car, and you slide the tip of the pen along the surface. The haptic feedback would stop the pen from penetrating into the model so it really felt like the tip was touching the volume of a solid. Super cool experience.

iamevn 4y ago
This sounds like it inspired a video game controller called the Novint Falcon. Swappable grip on the end of 3 arms that could detect up/down/left/right/forward/back movement and also had decently beefy motors to give you that sort of feedback. I was super impressed by the demo software that has a part where you moved a virtual hand through various substances. Honey and molasses really felt like you were moving your hand through viscous liquid, you could feel the texture of a bumpy rock but not move through it, and most impressive to me was a sphere of ice that really felt like your hand easily slid along the surface. It got first party support in a bunch of Valve games and a decent number of games had unofficial support through mods but it never really took off and I think the company now makes medical tools with the same sort of tech. The lack of feedback in input devices beyond a little rumble is really disappointing. I think feedback is extremely important especially now that VR is starting to actually take off.
- elil17 4y ago
  Feedback is just hard to do. There are safety concerns (anything with powerful enough feedback is strong enough to hurt you if it malfunction). It’s also pretty expensive because you need a bunch of servos and force transducers which add up as you add DOF.
gmueckl 4y ago
Was this pen on an arm later commercialized as the Phantom Omni?

ntoskrnl 4y ago

The SpaceMouse looks really cool! I might pick one up and see if I can get it working outside CAD software (which are the only demos I could find). Has anyone messed with it and can give me an idea where to get started? Like, what's the interface it uses to talk to software? Can you use any old joystick library like SDL2 or it is something custom?

elil17 4y ago
The company provides and SDK. There’s also an open source driver/SSK called SpaceNav. The device has been used as a video game controller by someone playing Elite Dangerous. It was also used as a robot controller by NASA. My one caution is that it’s quite hard to isolate control of individual axis. This is fine in CAD - if you accidentally move a tad in the Z axis while you’re trying to rotate, it doesn’t really effect anything. But depending on what you want to bind the mouse to it might make it really unusable.