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Physical knobs, sliders and dials for software


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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

This caught my attention in all the Black Friday add flood, this seems very, very pricey to me for the functionality it offers, but how useful or important would something like this be for you all?

 

https://palettegear.com

 

I'm completely addicted to my spacenavigator knob, but things like these seem to be more of a niche convenience feature than something that let's you control things in a way you couldn't otherwise.

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1 hour ago, Jim Wilson said:

This caught my attention in all the Black Friday add flood, this seems very, very pricey to me for the functionality it offers, but how useful or important would something like this be for you all?

 

https://palettegear.com

 

I'm completely addicted to my spacenavigator knob, but things like these seem to be more of a niche convenience feature than something that let's you control things in a way you couldn't otherwise.

 

I investigated a modular key versions of something like this for hotkeys. I'm surprised there aren't virtual versions too (eg. customizable input blocks like this but on your iPad instead of being physical). I think the issue holding them back is software interface design. If VW has standardized input methods more like C4D it might be more useful (eg. almost every numeric input in C4D can be scroll wheeled up and down).

 

Ways I could see something like this being used in VW -

  1. Buttons for views if you're on a laptop without a numeric keypad.
  2. Knob for automatic rotation of a selected objects.
  3. Knob or slider for setting an objects position visually through increments (think nudge on steroids).
  4. Sliders or knobs for setting lighting levels.
  5. Knob for cycling through fields of the floating data bar.

 

Generally knobs and sliders are great for anything incremental and fluid. Vectorworks is very poor for these sorts of things right now. It can require a lot of trial and error. I sometimes spend a lot of time moving things by small increments in VW using the one full increment forward, half an increment back, quarter of an increment forward etc. Imagine if your household dimmer switch only went up in 5% increments - that's how VW works right now 🙂

 

I would love to see the VW interface get better at fluid visual design. Until that happens something like this wouldn't be all that useful.

 

 Kevin

 

Edited by Kevin McAllister
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Like Jim I now couldn't live without my 3d spacenavigator thing. If there's anything in VW (I can't think of much) that could be better adjusted with a physical input perhaps it could be done via the spacenavigator. Mine has hotkeys that can be assigned to some things.

 

But...sort out the basic UI before even thinking of adding capability for this kind of stuff (please).

 

 

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14 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

6. The fine tune camera views dialog. All those poor sliders where you can't even mouse wheel on them. Dragging with a mouse isn't quite the same as a wheel, knob or physical slider..... If you could tab between the sliders and use a proper input 🙂

 

KM

 

Not sure the controls would help. Fine tune seems to just get hung up on an internal process. 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Matt Overton said:

Not sure the controls would help. Fine tune seems to just get hung up on an internal process. 

 

 

Also if I remember right from the last time I used it, it's not scaled properly, so that a very small move of the slider results in too big a change in the view.

Edited by line-weight
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9 hours ago, Matt Overton said:

Not sure the controls would help. Fine tune seems to just get hung up on an internal process. 

 

Yes, single core / processing is definitely part of the issue anywhere fluid input is needed. Using a Marionette slider to rotate an object, for example, is only as smooth as processing allows. Mouse wheeling in C4D to rotate an object is very fluid.

 

Kevin

 

 

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