Street View control (in Google Earth)

Questions and answers about 3Dconnexion devices on macOS.

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seanseena
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:49 pm

Street View control (in Google Earth)

Post by seanseena »

Navigating around in Google Earth with the 3D mouse is absolutely spectacular, but unfortunately it's totally non-functional when switching to Street View. Well, it'll flash the 3D arrows, so Google Earth is receiving the 3D mouse input, but it never moves your position. Any ideas how to fix this?

I think Street View doesn't have native support, but perhaps there's a hack around that. For example, perhaps binding:
•3D mouse spin CW -> Right keyboard arrow (to pan your view to the right)
•3D mouse spin CCW -> Left keyboard arrow (to pan your view to the left)
•3D mouse tilt forward -> Up keyboard arrow (to walk forward)
•3D mouse tilt backward -> Down keyboard arrow (to walk backward)'

Also, linking the amount of 3D mouse force, to a key repeat rate or press duration, might be a good idea to provide an amount of panning or walking.

It wouldn't be as elegant as native support, but it would work. Is this possible? And if so, is there any way to switch between (a) such a binded profile for when in Street View mode and (b) normal profile for when returning back out to Google Earth general navigation mode?

What about toggling Rotations (on/off) or Pan Zoom (on/off) (achieved by a 3D Mouse Button L click), could that come into play somehow?

Or what about somehow involving BetterTouchTool.app or Karabiner.app to assist in binding commands?

Ps, I'd appreciate no answers like "request this from Google" because that won't go anywhere, so it's equivalent to saying "I don't know" unfortunately. Others that might have a helpful answer might think this topic's been addressed. In fact, similar questions about Street View have been asked years ago, they got such answers, and clearly we still have this limitation 5-6yrs later. However, those questions never posed solving this with workarounds like I am hoping for here.
diegushra
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2021 2:49 pm

Re: Street View control (in Google Earth)

Post by diegushra »

Greetings, how did you get to work properly in Google Earth, mine just spins around uncontrollably the moment I activate the external controller in Google Earth preferences.
diegushra
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2021 2:49 pm

Re: Street View control (in Google Earth)

Post by diegushra »

Greetings how did get Space Navigator to work in Google Earth?, mine just spins uncontrollably the moment I enable the external controller in the Google Earth preferences...
seanseena
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:49 pm

Re: Street View control (in Google Earth)

Post by seanseena »

diegushra wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 2:54 pm Greetings how did get Space Navigator to work in Google Earth?, mine just spins uncontrollably the moment I enable the external controller in the Google Earth preferences...
Mine did the same uncontrollable spin when I was trying to use a joystick, the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick to be exact. Which I probably never properly set up with my Mac (it's officially for Windows but some people had reported it could work on the Mac but probably required "USB Overdrive" or other such software that I couldn't get to work). So, make sure no other controller-like devices are connected, perhaps those are causing the spin, not the 3D mouse.

This is probably obvious, but make sure your 3D mouse is installed and works properly by playing around in the 3DxWare driver trainer app.

Otherwise, I didn't do anything special to make it work, it "just worked". But it's just NOT working in Street View mode unfortunately, only in the satellite view mode.
diegushra
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2021 2:49 pm

Re: Street View control (in Google Earth)

Post by diegushra »

Thank you for your reply, I've been using the Space Navigator with other programs, like Vectorworks and Sketchup, I think in the last update of Google Earth Pro they messed-up something because I've used the Space Navigator with Google Earth in the past..
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