[This content is now out of date as subsequent 3DConnexion drivers adopted a different approach]
"It's Friday, it's five to five. . . It's Crackerjack!" ...but this week instead of a Crackerjack pencil, settings files for your 3DConnexion SpaceMouse!
Out of the box the 3DConnexion devices offer some fairly generic windows commands. Adding MicroStation commands to your individual user profile is well handled by the 3DConnexion GUI but wouldn't it be great if you had a good starter set of Bentley specific commands that could easily be distributed to anyone using a SpaceMouse?
This requires some delving into the 3DConnexion profiles, matching up the device button names and the codes that link to them, followed by carefully pasting in custom commands created with the 3DConnexion GUI.
How to do this will be the subject of a future technote, but in the meantime please try out these files for MicroStation and AECsim Building Designer: SpaceMouseSettings_v1.zip. Settings are currently included for Navigator, SpaceMouse Pro and SpacePilot Pro devices.
Files for Bentley Navigator, Bentley View and PowerDraft (because you can work with 3D files in PowerDraft) will be added once tested.
Download and paste into C:\Program Files\3Dconnexion\3Dconnexion 3DxSoftware\3DxWare64\en_us\profiles\default (rename the existing microStation.scr to .bak if you want to go back to it).
Once the 3DConnexion services are restarted the new profiles will be available, as you switch focus to MicroStation or AECOsim the new settings will be activated. The settings for AECOsim Building Designer with the SpacePilot Pro are shown here:
In addition I’ve also included an extensive list of F-key combinations:
as this will allow you to make use of the easily customisable F-keys in MicroStation to add any other command without having to delve further into the button settings in the SpaceMouse driver. Just use your existing MicroStation/AECOsim F-keys or create new ones, then use the menu on each button to associate the F-key that you want to use.
To help control the SpaceMouse movements there is a set of tools, how they work is described in MicroStation help > Getting Started > Fundamentals > Graphical Input > Graphical Input with a 3Dconnexion Device.
To lauch the toolbox either Ctrl +T to open the Toolboxes dialog, tick 3dInput, or key-in: VIEW NAVIGATION 3DINPUT TOOLBOX.
It's worth keeping this docked if you frequently use a SpaceMouse.