Blender NDOF Menu activation

h_stephens · Post by **h_stephens** » Thu Feb 09, 2023 5:26 am

I've recently purchased a SpaceMouse Pro and am in the process of setting it up to work with Blender on Windows 11, but there's one button and menu that I can't seem to get to work as expected.

In Blender, there's supposed to be a "NDOF Menu" that you can call up with the "MENU" button on the SpaceMouse. It's a context menu that lets you quickly access the NDOF input settings like changing navigation from Free to Orbit or inverting axes or whatever.

In the 3DConnexion settings, with Blender as the target application, the "MENU" button is by default bound to a command "Application Use." In the Blender keymap settings, the "3D Mouse Settings" menu says it's triggered by a button called "NDOF Menu." However, the "MENU" button does not actually trigger the menu as expected.

I have found a workaround by creating a macro in the 3DConnexion settings so that the "MENU" button simply triggers a keypress (for example, "D"), and if I edit Blender's keymap to expect the "D" key to trigger the "3D Mouse Settings," it does actually call up the menu.

I could just leave well-enough alone at this point, but it does bother me that it doesn't work as intended. So I'm wondering if anyone has any insight on the disconnect between the 3DConnexion software and Blender. Like when the "MENU" button is set to "Application Use," what is it actually sending to the application? Blender seems to be expecting input from a specific hardware button called "NDOF Menu," but I don't see any appropriate option in all of the possible commands in the 3DConnexion settings.

Thanks much!

Oh, also, a somewhat related question... while searching through the possible commands that I can assign to the SpaceMouse buttons, there are a series of mysterious commands under the application specific Blender heading: "App function 1" all the way through "App function 29." What do these do? Or is there a way to peek at the SpaceMouse configuration files to see for myself what data all the unexplained commands are sending to the application?