As I have said before, I had received a SpaceNavigator from 3Dconnexion to help test and debug the controller and associated developed plug-in for World Wind.

I have been using it a week now, so figure now is as good a time as any to review. Now I have read the posts by the Google Earth bloggers. And the first thing I did was try this with was within Google Earth. And while it works right out of the box, I was not THAT impressed with how it worked in GE, the control felt sluggish and unnatural. If you want to know how the Google Bloggers felt about it, read their posts.

Now, to try the SpaceNavigator in World Wind. It does not work natively, you need a plug-in to make it work. So after installing the drivers on the computer, I installed the 3Dconnexion World Wind plug-in into the World Wind plug-ins folder and started World Wind.

Once you start World Wind you turn the plug-in on via the Plug-In control panel, I would suggest enabling it to be started every time you start World Wind. Once enabled you can start using the SpaceNavigator, you can make some basic changes in settings via the plug-in control. This screen shot is the original plug-in control, there is a newer version I have not tested yet that incorporates some changes I have suggested.

The main change is the first two options are combined as one since they both do the exact same thing in World Wind. Using the Camera or User option, you are moving around in World Wind the same as you would be using a mouse. The third option actually moves the globe and it can be like controlling a bucking bronco. I still have not mastered using this mode.

Now, when I very first started World Wind with the plug-in enabled, I did see one major bug come up. I had rundll32 using 49% of the CPU and even after exiting World Wind it was not released, I ended up having to reboot to fix it. I have not been able to recreate this bug since. I did report it, but even 3DConnexion could not recreate it, I think it was just a lucky combination of events I had. Other than that, no issues really of note.

Controlling World Wind with the SpaceNavigator took about a day to feel comfortable with, once I was comfortable with the controls and how they reacted, moving the globe became second nature and really, really fluid like. Before with the mouse you were limited by the amount of desk area you had to move the mouse. With the SpaceNavigator you do not have the limitation.. so you can rotate the globe for hours on end if you want to.

The controls are straight forward, as you can see here.

The big trick is knowing how to hold the knob and just how much pressure to use. I found that holding the sides of the knob about midway with my thumb and middle finger and held my index finger on top gave the best control. Once you have that down, it is second nature. I have been zipping and zooming and turning all over the globe like I never did before with just the mouse. World Wind is very responsive to the SpaceNavigator controls, unlike what I experienced in Google Earth (maybe I need to increase the speed past the default settings for GE). I really felt like I was flying a plane or a space ship, over the ground, really sweet. One thing I did notice was that the SpaceNavigator over-rode the Planet Inertia setting, so when you stop moving, the globe stops moving. Using the mouse you would still have the globe moving for a second after you stopped moving. This gives you some greater accuracy in control (but you can get the same with the mouse, just turn the setting off).

You still will need you mouse, the SpaceNavigator just rotates, pans, tilts and zooms in and out. You will still need the mouse to control the menu and layer options, and to click on any features on the globe.

Is this for everyone? Probably not. But it is a really good device to have if you are a teacher or presenter that world with World Wind or Google Earth, or just a really hard core Virtual Globe viewer.

If I used a rating system.. would have to say “5 out of 5″ then.