CAD Tech Tools

[Michael Hill]

I also bought a space navigator. It's okay....I do find it a bit faster than a mouse in getting just the right view that I want, but it's at the expense of several hotkeys. I did bind the keys on there to keys that would allow me to make measurements, mate and reset the views.

I also bought the cadmouse from 3dconnexion. It's actually a pretty legit mouse that works great for CAD. I also got the enormous mousepad. The mousepad really isn't too necessary because the mouse works on pretty much every surface well (a distinct difference with the previous 2 mice I used). It's also got a bunch of keys that can be bound to various functions. The only downside is that it's wired, but it's a sufficiently long cord that can reach pretty far if you need to route it through a desk. I'm on a laptop most of the time, so the cord generally just gets in the way, but I can see it for desktop use. The big difference this mouse has over a lot of others is a 3rd mouse button plus a scroll wheel (not too many mice have that). The middle button acts as a scroll wheel click, so you can scroll wheel click without worrying that you're going to zoom in or out accidentally.