Is anyone here familiar with navigation hardware? At work I use a product called Spaceball (http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/3a2.php).
I?m now reviewing several AEC programs and it seems none of them utilize this technology.
Spaceball (& similar products) allows for simultaneous panning/zooming/rotating, is very intuitive, and definitely increases productivity. It plugs into a USB or Serial port and is used by your non-mouse hand.
It's used extensively in mechanical CAD products (CATIA, SolidWorks, Pro Engineer, etc) and I can already see it would be useful on AEC (I keep reaching for it here at home).
Does anyone have an opinion as to why AEC products don?t utilize navigation hardware?