kbell Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 Has anyone used a spacemouse with ironcad. It does not look like it "officially" supported, but I was wondering if it would work. A spacemouse for anyone who cares is a cool "3D" mouse that you use in addtion to your standard mouse and keyboard. http://3dconnexion.com/products/Plus.htm Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 Spaceball/mouse doesn't work with IronCAD. Here are some posts regarding this: http://www.ironcad.com/support/community/index.php?showtopic=821 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 Yaaaaaaa. "A spacemouse on every workstation." Chant for 30 minutes every half hour until it's done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbell Posted January 17, 2002 Author Share Posted January 17, 2002 If it currently is not supported, what needs to be done to have it work. It seems like everyone else in the industry, even products that are much less money than Ironcad support it. Do I need to convice Ironcad or Logitech of the need? Thanks Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 For those of you not exactly sure what all the fuss is about, check out: http://www.3dconnexions.com/articles/benefits.html http://www.3dconnexions.com/products/4000/ For a brochure in pdf format: http://www.3dconnexions.com/flyers/ For a list of software that actually does support these sorts of input devices: (Don't be too disappointed) http://www.3dconnexions.com/software/drivers/ For even more information: http://www.3dconnexions.com/ Your friend, Rick Seeing that the interest is back on the SpaceBall, I updated the links above for all the new visitors to this thread. 14Jan03 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 Ken you are doing here exactly what it takes to convince the guys internally that this is something that they should add soon. Another good way is here: http://www.ironcad.com/support/community/index.php?showtopic=852 Since we have the triball working with the mouse, it's likely that the spaceball is not a top priority internally (although I have no official knowledge of the status of spaceball support). If you guys really want it then you'll probably have to convince them of the value of pushing a high priority item aside to code in support for the spaceball. Why is it more important to support a spaceball before adding new functionality like lofting along a 3d guide curve for example. The squeaky spaceball gets the grease. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 C'mon people. How is it that "the guys" can't see the benefits of having a 3 dimensional manipulation device for a software package that is a 3 dimensional object manipulator/creator. Support for these devices is standard equipment on every other Cad package out there. Any half serious Cad user has one. I'm quite flabergasted (To cause to be overcome with astonishment; astound.) that this discussion has been going on for as long as it has. I'm not quite sure what the triball has to do with the spaceball though; I'm seeing the spaceball functionality as something quite different altogether. But now that you mention it, it would be quite cool if it did tie into the triball. Imagine the possibilities boys! Shoot straight and stay low. We shall overcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 Oh they certainly see the benefit, it just takes time to code these things. They can't fit every enhancement on the list into a 6 month development cycle. They have a huge list of enhancements and they have to prioritize what goes into which rev. Everything anyone can think of is planned to make it into a future version (including spaceball support), the weight of the need for that feature is what determines where it lands on the timeline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpawlak Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 I guess ignorance is truly bliss, I've never used a Spaceball and I'm not lusting after Spaceball support. I'd rather see other fixes and enhancments first. I suggest another poll but with choices that run from Not Interested to Must Have, not from Gotta Have to Need it Yesterday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 Yes, ignorance is bliss. No argument there. The poll is a good idea. However, as Chris said "They have a huge list of enhacements..." This is part of the problem with polls. The users really don't have any idea what is on the list and what the item priority is. How can a poll seriously have an impact if people are asked to vote for something when they may actually want to have another enhancement implemented in front of it but don't know for sure. Hence the facetious nature of the first poll. It just seems that with Spaceball support being so rampant within the Cad industry that IronCad is not really in the game. If you want to be taken seriously then you have to at least support the devices that are commonly used for the application at hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 Oh yeah, almost forgot. Squeak, Squeak. Gotta whole bag of squeaks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhovatter Posted January 18, 2002 Share Posted January 18, 2002 Why does IronCad not approach the Makers of the Space Ball and let them figure out the interface? The Ironcad could feature it on web sight and everyone would be a winner Dallas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tlehnhaeuser Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 YES, we need the SpaceBall. I use it with some other less desireable programs and believe or not it makes the inferior CAD prgram more fun to work with and also more intuitive. I REALLY WANT IRONCAD to WORK WITH IT.!!!!! Life would be more fun. Also maybe theres a way that IronCAD take it a step further to make it a IC Enhancement. In other words, have the ability of the SpaceBall to create animations by somehow tracking its movement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 Wow, this thread was almost a year old before it was responded to by tlenhauser. Heh... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 Chris, What does that tell you? Some things are just not going to go away. We have heard that the next release of EdgeCam (v7.5) is going to support the SpaceBall. Oh, if only IronCad... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Ludin Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 Rick - A VERY reliable source? Like their web site, for instance? Have a look... Cheers, Beat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 http://www.edgecam.com/default.asp?goUrl=/uk/news/articles/pr_spaceball.shtml Ok, so it took them until version 7.5 to build that in. We're only on 6.0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Ludin Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 BobCAD is a version 18, that must be why it's so much further advanced than IC... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 Questino: Lets say, theoretically, that we have implemented the spaceball to function within IronCAD. Everyone tell me what it would do if it were actually there. Here's what I can think of so far. 1) Assign to camera movement with key modifiers IE:. Just move spaceball alone would rotate: ctrl+spaceball would pan, just like with the mouse. 2) Assign to triball movement (although I would never use this) 3) Use the custom keys on the spaceball for in-ironcad commands. I want to re-iterate that I'm not saying anything about whether we will ever implement a spaceball. If it ever happens though it will be good to have some feedback on what you would like the spaceball to actually do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dorrington Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 Chris, Forget the Triball. It's all about camera controls-no keyboard modifiers necessary with the SpaceBall. The "ball" gives you complete freedom of movement in any axis or all simultaneously. The included software allows you to assign buttons to all sorts of functions. The user can customize to his liking. If you want to add Triball functionality later that would be fine (would be pretty cool) but I never imagined that the SpaceBall was meant for anything other than camera. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tlehnhaeuser Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 Chris, I agree with Rick, The true 6 degrees of rotational movement would be great. Also, like I said before, maybe having the ability for the SpaceBall to track keypoints for animation. I'm not 100% sure, but theres a program called Merlin3D that does this using the SpaceBall. This would be a great selling point for IronCAD in addition to its already excellent animation abilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. Ludin Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 "The true 6 degrees of rotational movement would be great..." I'm sure Einstein would have loved to meet you Anyway, spacemouse support sounds like a good idea. I've never used one, though, so it's hard for me to judge how much easier it would make my life. Certainly, having it control the camera would be the first priority. But it might also be interesting if we could use it for the triball. To this end, it would be instrumental to have the spacemouse keys activate motion constraints, i.e. one key for directional constraint (the triball will move along the most prominently actuated axis), a rotational constraint (the triball will turn around most prominently actuated axis) and one or several stepsize constraints. Just my two Rappen, Beat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dlalonde Posted January 15, 2003 Share Posted January 15, 2003 SpaceBollocks! The thing is a godsend for applications with disfunctional or less than perfect implementation of the software between the mouse and camera movement. Cadkey and Mechanical Desktop come immediately to mind. Even Rhino is not quite right. Ironcad nailed it, it's one of those things we shouldn't take for granted. I'm not saying no, don't do it. I'd just like to have more surfacing tools first, especially those that create custom patch intellishapes from existing edges and faces. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eyup Ergecen Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 Hi, With the technical development support by 3D Connexion, we have experimentally developed IronCAD / SpaceMouse Driver which is in beta stage now and it has the following features: 1. When you start this program it opens IronCad with SpaceMouse Support. 2. You can increase & decrease SpaceMouse Sensivity from program. 3. It moves camera within 6 degress of freedom. You can pan & rotate camera. It uses following technique to manupulate SpaceMouse actions: 1.SpaceMouse sends differences in 6 parameter in eye coordinate system(dx,dy,dz,rx,ry,rz). SpaceMouse sends Panning, Rotating and Zoom differences. 2. Program gets Cameras position vector and look-up vector from IronCAD in IronCAD current coordinate system with OLE Automation. 3. Then transform this vectors to eye-coordinate system. 4. Applies panning differences (dx,dy), rotating differences(rx,ry,rz) and zooming differences(dz) to camera vectors. 5. After that program transform camera vectors defined in eye-coordinates into IronCAD current coordinate system. 6. With OLE Automation program applies new coordinates to camera's position and Look-up Vector. However, we have following problem with IronCAD / Space Mouse driver at the moment and it does not allow us to release it. The movement is not smooth in IronCAD when working normal way. But when you open a IronCAD dialog from menu or pop-up dialog of IronCAD scene, movement becomes smooth and works perfect. We believe the reason may be that (in developer's speaking) Scene event processor priority for event queue of Windows. When you open a dialog from IronCAD it moves to top at event queue so events passed directly to IronCAD this makes movements smooth. When closing dialog Windows changes IronCAD priorities so events delayed for IronCAD. And also the reason can be from OLE Automation event processor. When IronCAD has top priority OLE Automation functions started immediately from IronCAD. Otherwise automation functions queued in IronCAD so this problem occurs. We expect new SDK with version 6.0 and it will hopefully include some new possibilities for third party developers. After having studied the new SDK, we can re-try the same development to see if the problem can be overcome. However, for those people who takes interest the existing driver, it is enclosed for test purposes. Please make sure that IronCAD and SpaceMouse driver is installed at the machine you will try. Start the program directly it will start IronCAD automatically. SpaceMouseforIronCAD.exe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 */me passes out with shock* Uh....wow, never expected that to pop up. Wish I had a spaceball to test it now :-) Yes, in 6.0 we're exposing a great deal more for 3rd party development with much more documentation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.