Quote:
Originally Posted by Nbot
I've never used one but 3D mouses are an option. Here's a thread discussing them. |
That thread is almost 5 years old! Here's what I said then:
Quote:
Originally Posted by s_forbes
It's not the context of this thread, but this controller looks like something that would be great for precisely controlling a robot that has multiple degrees of freedom. We tried to set up the most intuitive control system possible for our 5-dof underwater robot using a gamepad type controller and it was just short of a nightmare to drive smoothly. This kind of input would have made it much easier to control. It looks ideal for swerve/omni FRC drivetrains as well, since it's not as cumbersome as a 3-axis joystick.
As an interface for CADing, I don't think I would get much out of it. The ability to click/move a mouse with one hand and use shortcuts with the other already makes work very efficient, and as Cory mentioned you can already do the same navigation movements using mouse wheel/shortcut keys. Still wouldn't mind trying it out though!
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Since then, I've had the chance to try a 3d mouse with Solidworks, and I could not get into it at all. It's much easier to use a shortcut key and a mouse/mouse wheel to rotate and zoom into place. Probably because I've been using a mouse interface forever, and going through a big learning curve to get used to a joystick seems pointless when there's almost nothing gained from it.
(Unrelated: but I've changed my mind about possibly using one as a robot controller as well. Mixing so many control axis into one joystick always seems to be cumbersome, regardless if it's shaped like a joystick or a doorknob.)
I tend to try to keep most of the hotkeys I use on my home machine close to the default ones in Solidworks. This is mostly so I don't feel completely disoriented when trying to demonstrate something while jumping from computer to computer at the school.