3Dconnexion input devices
Driver installation
Linux
FreeCAD supports drivers from project Spacenav. This is a project aiming to create an open-sourced driver which is compatible with the proprietary drivers from 3Dconnexion.
This is recommended since your distribution might provide an outdated version. For example, Ubuntu repos contain version 0.3.0 as of 2011-04-10.
- Download the following files:
- Unpack the archives into a folder in your home directory.
- Enter the directory spacenavd-0.5 and run the following commands:
./configure make
- If this was successful, run the following commands as root (or prefix with sudo.)
make install ./setup_init /etc/init.d/spacenavd start
- This installs the spacenav daemon, configures it to automatically load on system boot, and starts the daemon without having to reboot.
- Now it is time to check that your device is properly detected. With your device unplugged, run the following command and then plug it in.
tail -n100 -f /var/log/spnavd.log
- If the output looks something like this, you can continue.
Device detection, parsing /proc/bus/input/devices trying alternative detection, querying /dev/input/eventX device names... trying "/dev/input/event1" ... Power Button trying "/dev/input/event2" ... 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator using device: /dev/input/event2 device name: 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator
- Now enter the directory named libspnav-0.2.2 and run the following commands:
./configure make
- If make fails with the following error: ...
fatal error: gtk/gtk.h: No such file or directory
- ... then you need to install libgtkmm-2.4-dev. Under Ubuntu, this is done like this:
sudo apt-get install libgtkmm-2.4-dev
- When make has completed successfully, run the following command as root (or prefix with sudo.)
make install
- Look in the directory libspnav-0.2.2/examples/. If you want to test your device, compile and run either one of the two examples.
- Follow the same pattern to compile and install spnavcfg. Make sure to run spnavcfg as root, or no settings will be saved!
Install from repo
Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install spacenavd
OSX
One user managed to get space navigator working under OSX. HOwever it was not merged in master yet. More info here[1]
Windows
As of version 0.13, 3D mouse is supported under windows. You need to have propriate drivers installed, but since support was developed on lower level, it will override settings you set in 3D Connexion control panel. However, most of those settings can be set in Tools>>Customize dialog, under Spaceball tabs.
Setting up FreeCAD
TBD