I don't think we have any developers with this device, so that's going to be difficult to debug. Maybe @Mike Erwin (merwin) has ideas on how to solve this.

I got a SpaceMouse Pro when they came out, kept it long enough to get buttons etc. working then passed it along to someone else. On the motion side, it behaved just like any other model, so don't see any block to debugging with one of the other devices. I'll check out that tutorial & try to reproduce the issue.

Off the top of my head, sounds like the "dead zone" that ignores very small inputs is too small. That's just a value in blender's code. The only thing to try right now is hit the Calibrate button in the 3Dx preference pane.

I'm trying a spacenavigator at the moment too, on Mac 10.7.5. Have only had limited success after much experimentation. At the moment I have 3 of the available 6 axes working properly.

The In-Out, L-R motion ('pan') only seems to work with a qualifier key, which defeats the purpose of the device as a one-handed controller.

L-R roll I can't get to work at all.

ShaylaSS I had the same issues with crazy delayed movement at first too, and managed to get things set so that at least the axes that do work don't have this behaviour. MSG me and I'll share my settings, and will try to post something on BA later today or tomorrow for the sake of sharing.

But yeah, I'd love it if this device worked well with Blender. It's great, and fairly simple to set up in other apps.

Hi Stephen,

One by one I tried all the settings in the emails I attached to my tech question on BA. I am only mentioning this as after attempting each one on the same day, they eventually made my head swirl. And trying this again with your new settings will be a welcome idea today, a new day. Its also interesting that you're also on a MAC and have had the same experience. I haven't gotten as far as you did though. I only have Blender and haven't been able to try it with any other apps. I would love Maya but currently can't afford it. I do have Toon Boom Harmony and it is made to work with Maya and I guess Blender now too?
Thanks for giving your time to other peoples Blender issues.

Shayla

On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 10:17 PM, Stephen Hamacek <noreply@developer.blender.org> wrote:

hammers added a subscriber: hammers.
hammers added a comment.

I'm trying a spacenavigator at the moment too, on Mac 10.7.5. Have only had limited success after much experimentation. At the moment I have 3 of the available 6 axes working properly.

The In-Out, L-R motion ('pan') only seems to work with a qualifier key, which defeats the purpose of the device as a one-handed controller.

L-R roll I can't get to work at all.

ShaylaSS I had the same issues with crazy delayed movement at first too, and managed to get things set so that at least the axes that do work don't have this behaviour. MSG me and I'll share my settings, and will try to post something on BA later today or tomorrow for the sake of sharing.

But yeah, I'd love it if this device worked well with Blender. It's great, and fairly simple to set up in other apps.

TASK DETAIL
  https://developer.blender.org/T38580

To: hammers
Cc: ShaylaSS, merwin, brecht, hammers

Hi Merwin

I will try this calibration which I thought they said only set the orientation point so to be honest I hadn't tried that in helping the 3DSpaceMouse Pro from spinning dizzily out of control on my file with 15 meshes... lol.

Thanks for your assistance, Shayla

"I got a SpaceMouse Pro when they came out, kept it long enough to get buttons etc. working then passed it along to someone else. On the motion side, it behaved just like any other model, so don't see any block to debugging with one of the other devices. I'll check out that tutorial & try to reproduce the issue.

Off the top of my head, sounds like the "dead zone" that ignores very small inputs is too small. That's just a value in blender's code. The only thing to try right now is hit the Calibrate button in the 3Dx preference pane."

Hi Merwin,

BTW I hadn't tried the calibration yet as I had already created the Blender file I was working on when I first attempted to use the 3DSMP. I thought the 3DSMP calibration pane said it had something to do with the original orientation point of the Blender file? I don't know enough about either 3DSMP or Blender to realize if setting the calibration later in a Blender file (after I may of already altered the orientation point) would screw something up either with the 3DSMP or the Blender file I had already started. Although I am looking forward to trying calibration on a new Blender file ASAP and also Mr Hammers new settings. So far I love Blender.

Thanks for all the assistance, Shayla

I've put my settings up in a post on BA:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?327268-3D-mouse-settings&p=2578299&posted=1#post2578299

The lack of tilt I found was just having turntable instead of trackball set in preferences. My bad. Turntable can still be a good approach anyhow.

The calibration is just within the system preferences-> 3Dconnexion -> Tools -> Calibrate. Nothing to do with the Blender files as far as I know.

I've still had some issues with laggy, wacky orbiting, but mostly ok now. Still panning only works with qualifier.

Looking forward to seeing the new settings and putting them to use right away. I will start a new file and calibrate the 3DSMP first. I hadn't done a calibration as when I tried the 3DMP I had already started the alarm clock file. I didn't know how a calibration would work on a file that I was almost finished building. But since you have had similar issues on a MAC perhaps this is at least a little irrelevant to the bigger Blender 3DSMP performance issue. Thanks.

I have another question I will post it here and as a new question on BlenderArtists.org also if you would rather answer there: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?327297-2012-MAC-Lattice-tool-poor-performance-ie-SBBOD-(Spinning-Beach-Ball-Of-Death)
I have a 2012 5.1 Mac Pro Tower with OS X 10.8.4, an AMD Radeon 7950 3 gig graphics card, 32 gigs of OWC ram with an OWC Solid State start up disk with 150 gbs of free space. No other applications running other than Blender.I wanted to ask another MAC operator why I get the SBBOD (Spinning Beach Ball of Death) with practically everything I do with the Lattice tool in Blender. Other folks on BlenderArtists.org use MACs and I doubt they would have so much trouble and continue to use one on their way more complex work. I am working on the 3rd Alarm Clock tutorial on YouTube. While the narrator is doing everything his work flows in real time and I am constantly having to stop the tut while my MAC catches up. I don't know what he is using but it seems regardless my computer should be able to do this in real time also. I opened my Activity Monitor and nothing seems wrong.
I did the above SSD, Graphics Card, Ram and 10.8.4 drivers upgrade myself. And I am not sure what part of these 4 things would cause the Lattice to stall on rotation and switching from Edit to Object Mode and everything else? I might try any new GC drivers in 10.8.5. I have checked Wikipedia for info on what of these 4 upgrades controls what but can't seem to figure what to try to replace or troubleshoot first. I would like to do a benchmark test on GeekBench but I don't know if its worth the $15 for the 64 bit one? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Shayla

Just tested a 3D Space Mouse Pro with a Macbook pro, Blender revision - rBfcb06097a543db34d0eeb4a0c422250dedce4138
and it worked fine out of the box. (the same as on Linux with the opensource drivers).

Panning only working with a key-qualifier is intended, though I'm not sure I like it much either, we could just allow pan/orbit/zoom by default.

Note, if you want to rotate and pan you can go into fly mode Shift+F.

Hi Campbellbarton,

Thanks so much for the info. I have been getting a lot of feedback in the BlenderArtists.org forum on my other more in general mac question which I posed above here also. The feedback mostly concerns my 10.8.4 OS X and the AMD Radeon card that I am using with Blender. I may try a different card as in a Nvidia and see if everything on my computer plays better together? I am also having an issue with another favorite program of mine Toon Boom Harmony with their morphing tool being sluggish. The new card route may help this also? I can't update to the Maverick system as Toon Boom Harmony as warned against upgrading. They haven't worked out some issues.

I really appreciate everyones help so far, what a wonderful Blender community, Shayla

@Shayla Shadow Struck (ShaylaSS)

I very much doubt a different graphics card would improve/degrade how a 3d mouse works,

Although if you have very slow redrawing I guess it could...

At this point I think it would be best to see if your hardware works on a different system (another mac, or windows/linux).

Also, while I agree we could change how NDOF devices behave, best keep this out of the bug report, prefer we only focus on the error and proposed changed behavior elsewhere.
I've been working on NDOF this week and would like to discuss some improvements soon - http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Ideasman42/WhatImWorkingOn/2014#Week_182_.28Feb_10.29

@Campbell Barton (campbellbarton), thanks for checking into this and looking forward to some of your proposals on the wiki! NDOF for colour picking sounds cool. And +1 from me for pan without shift key, as this is the intended use of the device imo (i.e. one-handed).

PS just tried new build - seems more responsive, and digging the colour picking with NDOF (though a bit laggy for me and maybe could work without having to place cursor over wheel?) Thanks again. Sorry couldn't figure out how to msg you directly.

Hi CampbellBarton,

In reference to your post included below: I clicked on the Blender version "link" and was taken to a page of code which I did not understand. I did download the most current version of Blender 2.69 for the 64 bit MAC from Blender.org. I am not sure if you are suggesting a different version for me? And also the MacBook Pro you are referring to does it have Radeon card or Nvidia? Please humor me. I am going to follow your suggestion to try my 3D Mouse Pro with Blender 2.69 on my other MAC. A 2009 MacBook Pro with Nvidia cards. I think I might have an unusua Radeon card driver issue on my Tower. Anyway I will let you know how it works when I have a chance to try this.

Thanks so much, Shayla

Just tested a 3D Space Mouse Pro with a Macbook pro, Blender revision - rBfcb06097a543db34d0eeb4a0c422250dedce4138
and it worked fine out of the box. (the same as on Linux with the opensource drivers).

Panning only working with a key-qualifier is intended, though I'm not sure I like it much either, we could just allow pan/orbit/zoom by default.

Note, if you want to rotate and pan you can go into fly mode Shift+F.

@Ton Roosendaal (ton), AFAIR you've got such a thing in the studio. Mind checking or maybe you've got some clues? Also interesting if @jens verwiebe (jensverwiebe) have some clues here.

Probably indirectly related to this, but current SpacePilot Pro behaviour with recent Blender build (week 6-7): upon Blender start the device input doesn't work instantly, it starts working only after tabbing out and back into Blender. I didn't do a long session (mostly some test sculpting), but I didn't notice too bad behaviour compared to 2.59/2.60.

And another slightly vague observation. Spacenavigator on Mac 10.8.5 and recent build, I've had the following experience:

• On smaller projects, e.g. modelling/rigging characters, behaviour seems pretty solid (though still needs shift-less panning afaik);
• On animation scene files with multiple linked rigs (one example had 6 cookie-flex-ish rigs, so nothing very high poly) lag/delayed reaction makes device unusable. E.g. a small 3dmouse move can keep going for several seconds after letting go of the device. It behaves as if the mouse movement has been cued and just plays back very delayed.
• Similar very laggy behaviour using the 3dmouse in colour picker - seconds long lag.

Just my experiences so far as I've got limited time to do testing atm. Thanks!