14 DAY TRIAL // I am sure that most of those that used a 3D application that involved navigation through the three dimensional space at least once agree with the fact that using a mouse and a keyboard for this purpose can be really tricky. The worst part of all this is that sometimes you get stuck due to the user-computer interaction solution chosen and miss all the fun, but those times are about to go down in the IT history books and, most important, stay there!
Yesterday, at Macworld, 3Dconnexion announced that a beta version of its software for using the SpaceNavigator device with Mac OS X has become available. But what is this "SpaceNavigator"?
The SpaceNavigator is a hardware device that allows you to fly through valleys, go up to the highest mountaintops or orbit the Earth in one seamless motion, making powerful 3D animation accessible for architects, students or artists without pushing them to contract a credit to afford it. The SpaceNavigator is available for a suggested retail price of 59$, for non-commercial use license with online support only or 99$, for a commercial use license and full support, and it's ideal for Google Earth and Google SketchUp, but it can be used without problems with over one hundred 3D programs.
Plans are to have the final version of the software ready by the end of March, and to run the current beta, you need Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later, 10 MB of free disk space and an USB 1.1 or 2.0 port available. The 3DxMacWare public beta will support Google SketchUp 6.0, Autodesk Maya 7.0 and above, as well as form.Z 6.1, but until the final version pops up, I am sure that the capabilities of the software will get as close as possible to those of the hardware device.