A spaceball tip

[jerry1423]

It has been brought up in here on why NX does not have more commands available on the RMC (right mouse click), or the option to add our own commands to it.

I recently changed jobs and I noticed that my on my spaceball I am able to assign (limited) NX commands to the buttons. I have a simple 2 button spaceball from 3DConnection. My buttons were assigned "transform" on one and "show all" on the other. I really do not use "transform" as much as I used to, but it still is convienient to have it available at the press of a button.

I really don't know if this was available on any other spaceball that I have worked with, but it sure is nice.

Just a warning ... onn the spaceball menu "hide" is listed as "blank", and "show" is listed as "unblank", so therefore "show all" is listed as "unblank all". The "blank" terminology comes from older versions of NX.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Get one of these baby's and and you'll have all kinds of buttons to program:

Of course, to get the most out of it, it's best if you had taken piano lessons as a kid ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Nebur98]

We had the opportunity to trial that thing for a week.
Pretty expensive paperweight in my opinion.

The buttons are so wicked stiff that it litterally hurts by the end of the day. The position of the buttons on the left side is less than ideal. In my opinion this is the result of an designer going crazy. It's all about the looks and absolutely unergonomic.

In my opinion the non pro, normal Space Pilot is much more usable.

Nebur

 

[JohnRBaker]

The only reason I've even got one is because it was free (we test them for the company) and I agree, the button arrangement is not very usable, but it DOES stay where you put it on your desk ;-)

But that stays in the office. At home I have the regular 2-button Space Navigator and for on the road I use the smaller 2-button Space Navigator for Laptops.



John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[jerry1423]

There are so many buttons on the above spaceball that it is almost like going back to the PFK days.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Almost!

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[JohnFox]

Hi Guys,
I have the same model space mouse. The idea is great but the implementation sucks. The buttons are almost unusable, they are to stiff, to close together and pretty much in all the wrong places. The central paddle works flawlessly though, that is why I still use the device.

Overall the general shape fits the hand and supports the wrist nicely. I never use the LCD screen. If the buttons where in the right places for the shape of the human hand and gave a better response/feedback on touch (more like a normal keyboard would be fine) then it would be a must for the NX designer. Most likely if the buttons worked I would use the LCD screen occasionally.

cheers,
JohnFox

 

[JohnRBaker]

Don't knock the LCD screen. You can set it up to display any website you wish or you can get RSS feeds as well. That way you don't have to minimize your NX window to read the news or track your portfolio performance. Besides, from across the office the boss thinks you're only paying attention to your work ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[looslib]

Good thing Joan doesn't read Eng-Tips!

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[JohnRBaker]

Ben,

Her office is on the first floor and mine's on the second ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[wmalan]

I've actually enjoyed the older little SpaceTraveler even on my desktop systems. It has 8 segmented buttons around the 2.5" ring. I don't think they make it any more (replaced my SpaceNavigator with only 2 buttons). Easy on the fingers to use.

--
Bill

 

[JohnRBaker]

Perhaps the reason they no longer sell the old 'SpaceTraveler' is because it wasn't very durable, hardly what you need if you're on the road constantly taking it out and putting it back into your briefcase. I went through 3 of them (I think it was the cords which were failing) in about 18 months and the last time, about a year ago, we bought the newer SpaceNavigator for Laptops and it's been working fine.

Now don't get me wrong, if you're just using it at your desk and not constantly packing up the unit, it may be OK for years.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[SiW979]

We did pre launch trials for the Space pilot pro in the UK and the conclusions were is was an expensive chunk of cr@p, not only are the buttons to very hard to press and awkwardly positioned, the screen idea never really worked and it's not compatible with lotus notes. Our desingers voted in favour of the simple space navigator for around £70 and then with the money saved, buy a second 22" wide screen monitor which is a second screen actually worth having.

Best regards

Simon NX4.0.4.2 MP10 - TCEng 9.1.3.6.c - (NX6.0.3.6 MP2 native)

http://www.jcb.com

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