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Spacemouse support for linux
johannes_w
Member Posts: 25 PRO
in General
Hi guys!
Linux is not the hidden and nerdy OS it was a few years back. Many are switching from Mac/Windows to Linux already and since onshape has been brought into being, also CAD engineers are free of the windows chains! Which is great! But it is still a great barrier that there is no real support for 3d mice in linux. I know there is the spacenav project but as far as I understood this, there is no real compatibility between onshape and the spacenav driver (only blender).
3dconnexion stopped the linux driver support long time ago. So please take this request serious and work something out with 3dconnexion. You (the company) have a lot more weight than single users who complain about this at 3dconnexion.
One last thing, is there any documentation of how to control navigation in onshape like a 3d mouse does? In other words how does onshape get the input? Maybe there is a possibility to write some kind of android app that converts the smartphone into an air mouse using its accelerometer. I'm a spare time programmer and unfortunately, not a very good one. So I stand corrected if I'm blabbering nonsense about navigation control in onshape. I really have no idea how this usually works 
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Onshape, Inc.
Owen S.
HWM-Water Ltd
That would be nice! Hope it would be able to push it's output into an android app on the same device. like onshape moblie, or chrome mobile. On top of 'converting' your phone into a bluetooth 3dmouse for use on a pc
By the way Onshape does support 3dmouse. But it does fall into the hands of the hardware dev to interface with the OS. Onshape does not write direct hardware calls. And I doubt an up and comming CAD company will be able to convince 3dconnexion to do anything. Most users are still mac/windows. And a 3dmouse is a luxury accessory.
So little to no incentive for either company. So the only voice with power to change minds is the voice of the customer to the creator of the tool (3dconnexion)
I'm sorry but this is crappy but true
I don't love being the bearer of bad news, but our integration with the 3dconnexion does not go though the standard channels of interaction through built-in browser events (like the mouse does). It is a very specific integration that involves a proprietary API between us and them. We could consider exposing a public-facing navigation API that any user could program against (to make a custom controller), but this is not as simple as exposing an API we already have; it would require additional design and development work. If you would like to see an API like this exposed, please create an Improvement Request using the Improvement Requests category of this forum.
We try to only use W3C supported standards in our product. While the gamepad is supported (with different levels of support) by some of the major browsers, it is not an accepted standard yet:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Gamepad_API/Using_the_Gamepad_API#Specifications
We appreciate your IR, and will prioritize the work based on the the number of interested users.
As far as our connection with the spacemouse: 3dconnexion determined the spec of our integration. 3dconnexion's desire to have their devices have a uniform feel across different programs eliminates the possibility of using the html5 gamepad API as the platform for the integration. With the lack of any supported browser-level APIs for something like this (especially back in 2015) we had to make a proprietary API to connect with 3dconnexion devices.
I am not familiar with the standard protocol that spacenav uses with other CAD products, but I suspect that the difference is not what data is passed from the driver to the program, but rather how the data is passed from the driver to the program. I could be wrong though.
It would be possible to feed gamepad input into the API we already have, but this would require work either to a) make a user-facing well-designed public interface for generic navigation input or b) implement native gamepad support within our product. Either way, there is work required, which is the goal of our Improvement Request system.