Photoshop CS6 Rotate View Tool?

[Loki]

My SpaceMouse Pro, which I purchased in 2011, pans and zooms perfectly fine in Photoshop CS6 x64 using the 3.16.1 drivers. The ability to rotate the canvas still doesn't work after all this time however. Is this function ever going to be supported? If the answer is yes, what is the ETA? As nice as pan and zoom is, the ability to rotate the canvas arbitrarily while painting would blow those abilities away IMHO. No longer being forced to switch to the rotate tool and back again repeatedly while working would be a true godsend. If you agree, post in this thread to let 3dConnexion know it is a very desirable (not to mention obvious) feature. Thanks!

[UtaSH]

Hi Loki,

thank you for your input. I have forwarded your request to our product management.

[Loki]

Is it possible to trick my SpaceMouse Pro into doing what I want by editing any of it's configuration files? If so, can you please give me detailed step by step instructions of how to do so?

I found this thread today:

viewtopic.php?t=4196

I've spent the past few hours trying to decipher those instructions, but I'm at a loss and frustrated. I can use Options > Save As... to create a new profile (would not let me name it Photoshop, so I named it Photoshop CS6) but that just results in a new user02.cfg file in my ..\AppData\Roaming\3Dconnexion\3DxWare\profiles directory. The only file in my ..\AppData\Roaming\3Dconnexion\3DxWare\cfg directory is named LCDCfg.xml and that's it.

I don't understand instruction numbers 2 and 3 from the fourth post in that thread either, all of which I'll add to the end of this post. It sounds as if there is a way to change what each axis does, the same way one can easily reprogram the buttons. I cannot find anything that would allow me to do this in the "3dConnexion Properties" window unfortunately, which as I said before is currently version 3.16.1 (on a clean Windows 7 SP1 x64 installation that is up to date fwiw).

Code: Select all

1 Create Photoshop profile using the 3dMouse template
2 Change x, y z axis to suit (as noted I use the Z for zoom, X and y for pan) but you could leave them initially as the defaults, which also works fine on my rig.
3 Change the rotate axis to Keyboard Function and set clockwise to F11 and anticlockwise to F12 with Alt as the modifier for both
4 Apply, OK and exit
5 Navigate to the Cfg folder - here in Win 7 64
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\3Dconnexion\3DxWare\Cfg
6 Edit the Photshop XML file in the two sections that start with
<ActionID>HIDMultiaxis_Rz</ActionID>
You will see an entry for each <Key>44</Key> which is for F11 and the other with 45 for F12
Change these values to 68 and 69 (F13 and F14 which we can't enter on a PC)
Save the file, and, IMO, stop and restart the 3DX driver, probably doesn't matter.

[jwick]

Those instructions are for 3DxWare 10, which is in beta.

It does allow much better control over individual axes. If you can write some code, you can attach code to individual axes. You may be able to use the extension mechanism to access the Photoshop API to rotate the view. You'd have to know the Photoshop API and have some coding skills.

[Loki]

The beta was out way back in 2011 when I purchased my SpaceMouse Pro, but wasn't supported at all (quick edit: never used it before so don't know how it looks). Has anything changed in the 2+ years that have passed? The latest version listed on the download page was Beta 16 which I test installed on a virtual machine some weeks ago. Everything was identical to the 3.16.1 installation already on my main work machine so I never bothered to check whether it actually works with my SpaceMouse Pro or not. Another reason is because 3.16.1 was being listed as being the newest driver, at least according to the download page at the time (quick edit: just went there and 3.16.2 is the latest with no betas listed anymore). Just didn't see the logic in installing older beta drivers, especially ones that didn't appear to be any different from what I was already using. Here are all the drivers I've downloaded since 2011, all of which I keep in a dedicated folder:

3DxSoftware64_v3-15-2_r1219.exe
3DxSoftware64_v3-15-6_r1281.exe
3DxSoftware64SPP_v3-16-0_r1314.exe
3DxSoftware64_v3-16-1_r1342.exe

And now that I've typed all that... it would appear I downloaded the wrong beta! I decided to go hunting for information to figure out whether the beta supports the SpaceMouse Pro yet and was finally able to access the correct page. The last time I tried to access the beta download page, which was some weeks ago, I was constantly taken to the front page of the corporate 3dconnextion site. The only way to get to the drivers was from there and I must have assumed the beta that was listed at the time was the same one you're talking about now, jwick. Probably doesn't help that the about page in the 3.16.1 driver says 3DxWare either lol. I could have simply said nothing and save myself some embarrassment, but I think maybe it's for the better if I do hit the submit button instead.

PS: Don't know anything about coding other than the few bat files I've created to help others. I tried to learn C++ once but couldn't wrap my head around it. Living on borrowed time so I decided there were better things I could be doing (like CG).

[Loki]

Ok you'll be happy to know I got rotation operational and it works fine with pan and zoom. This is soooo much better than the non-beta drivers! Only took me two years to finally get to use them lol. Now to play with ZBrush and see how well the experimental support works.