3Dconnexion 3DX-700040 SpaceMouse Pro 3D Mouse

Super useful!You’d be surprised how much of a difference it makes having the support base compared to the standalone mouse. Buttons are cool, sometimes used them but not always.

The first time you try a space mouse you will feel like a drunk driver on an ice slick, with your part careening off to some unknown universe never to be seen again. But trust me, after a short time, your hand will just know what to do and you can rid yourself of the mouse button combinations and key pressing required to do the same thing-- all the while freeing up your mouse to do other things at the same time your are moving around in all three dimensions at once. The customizable in-app donut menus (or whatever they are called) will display the same icons used by the CAD program you are running, and are customizable for each mode of the software (sketch vs assembly for example). With the four function buttons alone there are a ton of menu combinations you can make, and that is really what sold me on this more expensive version compared with the smaller spacemouse.

This devise rocks. I'm never going back! I use it for Sketchup and AutoCad. The trick is setting up the buttons. Beware it will take a few weeks to adapt ( same as a different type mouse) the joy stick is intuitive, and button locations well thought out. It's a better mouse trap

Works great, should save on shoulder strain and finger pain when 3D modeling.One thing to note. I work remotely on CAD through another computer. I initially bought the Spacemouse Pro Wireless (bluetooth) version. I couldn't get the joystick to work through the remote computer, but all other buttons would work. I ended up returning the Wireless version, and purchasing this version and it worked! Buy this version if you plan to work remotely!

I bought this device here from Amazon a few months ago and wanted to give it a real workout before I wrote a review. I can't even describe how painful it would be to try and model something without this on my desk going forward. It's literally like reaching into your monitor and grabbing a mesh with your hand while you work on it with your regular mouse. That's not to say its a completely natural thing to pick up right away - I imagine it has about the same learning curve as a Segway, where at first you'd swear a sneeze would cause you to run over the nearest 6 yr old, but soon with a little practice you're chasing down geese around the park while that tour guide is yelling at you. It comes with a little training program that helps, and the software lets you setup sensitivites in various axes to tune it to your liking. Took me about a week to really settle in to using it 100%, and most of that was breaking old habits.The main benefit is really time savings. Even with extra mice buttons and keyboard shortcuts, you really cant Pan and Orbit and Zoom simultaneously with a standard planar 2D mouse. This guy has 6 degrees of freedom and can handle all that no problem. Often you have to stop whatever operation you're doing to manuever your work object and then go back to that operation. With this thing, it's like the program doesn't even know you're handling the object. Also, its got like 15 some buttons you can program (incl one that pops up an on-screen numpad) so you almost never need to touch the keyboard. I can honestly say after months of use, I'm completing projects 2-3 times faster than I was previously... and if that's worth $300 to you then definitely buy this bad boy right now.To be fair and balanced, here's some of the downsides. Make sure you go to their website and do a product search for which software applications you can use this for before you get it. For example, it would be genius if this thing worked in either Mudbox or ZBrush for digital sculpting and painting. I stink at both those programs and it works great in 3DS Max - so no problems for me personally - though I do tend to grab it when working in UDK and wonder why nothing's happening. I also wish it had a simple power switch on it somewhere... One so it doesnt draw power off the USB port when I'm not using it, and two cuz when I hop into a game of BF3 I often wonder why my guy has Parkinsons until I remember to crawl under my desk and unplug this device.Other than that - LED is nice and strong, it's never lost calibration, never crashed a driver, hasn't given me carpaltunnel and it doesnt bug me about software updates every 7 days. Best thing I have connected to my computer.

Not much to say about these things - once you start using them for CAD you can never go back. They are an indispensable tool for 3D work.One star knocked off because of the inaccurate picture - they only have an all black model; I confirmed this with the company, yet their listing shows a cooler looking two-tone model with dark gray highlights around the buttons. I returned two of them before I found out that some genius in the marketing department uploaded the wrong picture to Amazon (probably concept art or a never-released variant of the pro model)Note to 3Dconnexion - you really should make it with the gray highlight because that looks a lot cooler then all black!

Excellent control over 3-D models!

This makes life a lot easier to navigate on my comp.