Until now, advanced 3D navigation has been reserved for high-end design professionals. With the introduction of the SpaceNavigator, 3Dconnexion has made this exciting technology accessible and affordable for architects, artists, students and anyone else who wants to enjoy the 3D experience. 3Dconnexion's SpaceNavigator offers natural and intuitive navigation of 3D environments and objects for today's most popular and powerful 3D applications. Simply push, pull, tilt or twist the SpaceNavigator's controller cap to simultaneously pan, zoom and rotate 3D imagery. You'll experience an easy, simple and fun way to fly through 3D environments like Google Earth using 3Dconnexion's award-winning technology. Two programmable keys store your favorite application functions.At home, at school or on the road - SpaceNavigator Personal Edition is the Navigation Device for your 3D world. There are no differences between the devices in terms of scope or capability. The only difference is the license. The SpaceNavigator Personal Edition is exclusively for private use or for use in research and education.
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
Awesome, if it works with your software, October 9, 2008
By
K. WhitfieldGot this for Autodesk Inventor, Blender, and Maya. Works great! I wish they had Lightwave support (perhaps in the future?).
Glad I bought it. But remember, you only have two hands, so you have to either give up the mouse or keyboard for a moment to use it. I wish I had three hands, as I use the mouse and keyboard simultaneously most of the time.
Remember to check to see if your software will work with it before you buy.
Perfect for AutoCAD Inventor, October 5, 2008
By
Robert R. Boyer (Kingston NY)
I have been using the space navigator for three weeks now and it is everything you could ask for in 3D modeling. It greatly improved my productivity by making me feel apart of the model. I move around my models like second nature wihtout clicking my mouse button at all. It also works very well with Adobe Acrobat reader and also windows picture viewer. I highly recommend this product.
must have if you do CAD, September 30, 2008
By
Amazon Shopper (Phoenix, AZ USA)
Awesome product, and great price! I'm not sure how I lived without it for so many years. Do yourself a favor - if you are thinking about buying one, just do it. You won't regret it.
Mine showed up the day after I ordered it. You certainly can't beat that - but then it did ship from Phoenix (I live in Phoenix), so your results may vary...
Download the updated drivers from the web - don't bother with the CD. It's a pretty big install, but I think you can configure it to only put the drivers in for the programs you use. I'm using it with Solidworks, and it saves me sooooo much time, especially when adding mates to tons of fasteners in assemblies. I've just about worn out the scroll button on my mouse before I got the spacenavigator - and I did wear out my finger!
Make sure you install the driver for Explorer (I think it is). When you open up pictures in folder view filmstrip (win XP), your spacenavigator does sweet smooth zoom and pan. Not really very useful, but really really cool.
Finally some technical details:
-You can turn the blue LEDs on or off, whatever you prefer. They do look kind of cool, but do distract your eye making you put your hand back on it to shield the light.
-It has pretty good weight. The base is a solid chuck of stainless steel. A bit more weight wouldn't have hurt, but I think it's a good compromise. You need the weight to keep it on the desk when you pull up on the stick. It also helps it from sliding around.
-It has a rubber ring on the bottom. This can pick up dust and start sliding, so you need to keep it clean for best "sticktion" to your desk.
-It has 2 buttons which seem to be more than enough for me. I can pick with the mouse faster than remembering which button to push on a secondary input device anyway. The buttons are to the left and right of the stick. They help you orient the unit so you keep the axis the right way. Personally, I would have shifted the entire button arrangement clockwise about 30 degrees to better match left thumb/middle finger placement. I tend to rotate it during use, and then the axis do not match up.
-The stick does have 4 little ribs which stick out top to bottom, giving you tactile indication of the orientation of the stick.
-The 2 buttons are assignable to a good list of items.
-The drivers allow customization on a per program basis.
-You can adjust overall speed of movement, as well as each individual axis with a slider type menu. Overall, quite well done.
I'm think about buying a second one as a spare!
Review of 3dconnexion SpaceNavigator PE, September 20, 2008
By
W. T. Hoffman (PA, USA)
Excellent product for working with 3d games and programs. This joystick is great for playing the game Second Life. Also great for Google Earth.
A handy tool for making movies in Second Life, September 4, 2008
By
Torley (torley.com)
The SpaceNavigator PE is perhaps most useful if you have a goal in mind beforehand -- for example, a current 3D app you use is driving you crazy when you try to interface with the keyboard + mouse, and you've noticed the SpaceNavigator is supported. The price is very reasonable and I wouldn't be surprised to see that help this device and others like it get more popular.
I primarily use the SN with Second Life, where it's supposed with version 1.20 (the current "main viewer", altho some people still use 1.19.1). Yes, I'm the Torley Linden you may've seen mentioned who made video tutorials for this, and I recommend Residents who want to get the most out of the SN should visit, learn from, and add to: [...]
One of the BIGGEST benefits to having the SN with Second Life is smooth, versatile camera tracking motion for machinima (creating movies inworld). In Flycam mode, you can pan, zoom, and do all sorts of crazy things like spin the camera around until you get drowsy. By customizing the setup, you can increase the cam feathering so it coasts along, or have it act more "tightly". You can (one of my faves) also disable Auto-Level and tilt it slightly so the horizon isn't perfectly straight -- this adds a subtle (or more dramatic) yet very welcome dynamic nuance to still snapshots, too.
I don't use the Avatar movement or Build modes very much at all, but they're available if you want them.
The build quality and overall design is pretty sleek. At the beginning, I was a bit confused by how easy it was to combine actions, and kept pushing and twisting the cap at the same time -- as I got more experienced, I found this to be very handy, but keep in mind that the SN does give you "6 degrees of freedom" and you can articulate yourself smoothly with that.
For Second Life, at least on a Windows-based system, remember that if the SN is moving your avatar, even if you aren't touching it, you may need to go to the 3DxWare Panel in Windows' Control Panels and calibrate it. Another thing is specifically in SL, in Edit menu > Preferences > Input & Camera tab, make sure to setup things to your taste in there. I do have the latest version of the official drivers installed so the blue light indicates when it's on, as well as compatibility with other apps, but it should work fairly well with SL out of the box.
Have fun! ;D
