3D Mouse

From Wikipedia:3d mouse#3D mice:

Also known as bats, flying mice, or wands, these devices generally function through ultrasound and provide at least three degrees of freedom. Probably the best known example would be 3DConnexion/Logitech's SpaceMouse from the early 1990s.

For more information: https://web.archive.org/web/20200731022623/https://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacemouse.html#panel-whatis

Note: The following instructions have been tested and proven to work on the most basic model (Space Navigator).

Proprietary drivers

1. Plug your 3D mouse into your USB port. Use lsusb to check if it was recognised

$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c626 Logitech, Inc. 3Dconnexion Space Navigator 3D Mouse

2. Install openmotif.

3. Symlink libXm.so.4 to libXm.so.3

# ln -s /usr/lib/libXm.so.4 /usr/lib/libXm.so.3

4. The driver has some problems to get the username from /var/run/utmp and will output a "failed to get user" error.

To fix this problem compile the following program. It appends the given username to /var/run/utmp in such a way that the driver can read it.

3dmouse.c

/* source: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-609224.html
 *         http://www.3dconnexion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1039
 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <utmpx.h>

int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
  if (argc != 2) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Need a name to put in the structure\n");
    exit(1);
  }
  struct utmpx u;
  memset(&u, 0, sizeof(u));
  u.ut_type = USER_PROCESS;
  u.ut_pid = getpid();
  strcpy(u.ut_id, ":0");
  strcpy(u.ut_line, ":0");
  strcpy(u.ut_user, argv[1]);
  setutxent();
  pututxline(&u);
  endutxent();
} 

$ gcc 3dmouse.c -o 3dmouse
# ./3dmouse root

5. Download the linux drivers to /tmp from here: https://www.3dconnexion.com/service/drivers.html

6. Unpack the install script and run it

$ tar xfz 3dxware-linux-v1-5-2.i386.tar.gz install-3dxunix.sh
# ./install-3dxunix.sh
Password:


This installs 3DxWareUnix V1.5.2 on this machine. Continue? (y/n) [y]
y

 Choose one of the following platforms:

  1.  HP-UX
  2.  Solaris
  3.  AIX 5
  4.  Linux
  5.  Exit

Please enter your choice (1-5)[4]:
4

Installing files for 3DxWare for Unix / linux......

Uninstalling a running driver. Please wait ...
Done.

Converting default configs V5.x to V5.3.
(User configs will be converted when used)
Please wait a moment...
Converting configs... found 27 configurations
Configuration file             Configuration name       Version Status
/etc/3DxWare/UGSNX2_01.scg     ("UGS NX 2 config 01      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/4DNav.scg         ("4D Navigator            ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/UGSNX5_02.scg     ("UGS NX 5 config 02      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/CatiaV5_02.scg    ("CATIA V5 config 02      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/Maya2011.scg      ("Maya 2011               ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/CatiaV4_01.scg    ("CATIA V4                ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/Patran_01.scg     ("Patran                  ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/UGSNX4_01.scg     ("UGS NX 4 config 01      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/Pr(...)ire_02.scg ("ProE Wildfire config 02 ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/Pr(...)ire_01.scg ("ProE Wildfire config 01 ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/UGSNX2_02.scg     ("UGS NX 2 config 02      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/CatiaV5_03.scg    ("CATIA V5 config 03      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/UGSNX3_02.scg     ("UGS NX 3 config 02      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/default_10.scg    ("Driver Protocol 1.0     ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/CADDS_R14.scg     ("CADDS5 R14 +            ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/CatiaV5_01.scg    ("CATIA V5 config 01      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/DMUNav.scg        ("DMU Navigator           ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/UGSNX4_02.scg     ("UGS NX 4 config 02      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/Enovia_VPM.scg    ("Enovia VPM              ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/UGSNX5_01.scg     ("UGS NX 5 config 01      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/ICEM_MED.scg      ("ICEM MED                ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/CADDS_R13.scg     ("CADDS5 -R13             ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/DVise.scg         ("DVise                   ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/Op(...)alizer.scg ("Optegra Visualizer      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/UGSNX3_01.scg     ("UGS NX 3 config 01      ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/IDEAS_01.scg      ("IDEAS                   ") 5.3 Ok.
/etc/3DxWare/default.scg       ("Any Application         ") 5.3 Ok.

Done.

Do you want 3DxWareUnix being started with every login (from the /etc/inittab)? (y/n) [y]
n

Please start the driver manually. [/etc/3DxWare/daemon/3dxsrv -d <port>]

****************************************************************
    For testing purposes you can find the demos
                      xcube and xvalues at /tmp
****************************************************************

NOTE: I chose not to run the driver everytime I login.

7. You can run the driver manually by calling it like this (for USB version):

# /etc/3DxWare/daemon/3dxsrv -d USB

8. You should now have a working 3D mouse in Arch Linux! You can test it by extracting the demos from the driver archive.

$ tar xfz 3dxware-linux-v1-5-2.i386.tar.gz xcube
$ ./xcube

Open source drivers

There exists also an open source driver for 3Dconnexion devices maintained by the spacenav project. From the short list of softwares that supports spacenavd we can cite:

• Blender
• Freecad
• OpenSCAD

For it to work three things must be fulfilled

1. The device must be recognized by the kernel as input device
2. The spacenavd daemon must be running
3. The application must be compiled with spacenav support. (community/blender should be)

The first requirement should be fulfilled automatically after plugging in the device. It can be checked by looking if the device is listed in /proc/bus/input/devices e.g. by

$ grep 3Dconnexion /proc/bus/input/devices
N: Name="3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator"

For the second point install libspnav and spacenavd^AUR (or spacenav-plus^AUR if you need support for older serial mice) from AUR. For testing it is a good idea to start the daemon on foreground mode. The output should look similar to this:

# spacenavd -v -d
Spacenav daemon 0.5
Device detection, parsing /proc/bus/input/devices
using device: /dev/input/event21
device name: 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator
trying to open X11 display ":0"
   XAUTHORITY=/home/user/.Xauthority

If it works you can simply shut down the daemon by hitting CTRL-C and run it using the following service to start the daemon (should come with spacenavd).

/etc/systemd/system/spacenavd.service

[Unit]
Description=Userspace Daemon of the spacenav driver.

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/var/run/spnavd.pid
Environment=XAUTHORITY=/run/user/1000/gdm/Xauthority
ExecStart=/usr/bin/spacenavd

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now everything is up and running and every supported application should be able to use the 3D Mouse.

Blender with spacenav support

The blender package in the community repository is now compiled with spacenav support by default.

However, if you wish to rebuild Blender with spacenav support manually, you can install libspnav first and then rebuild blender from ABS. It will automatically build with NDOF(=spacenav) support.

Now you can fire up blender and test your 3D Mouse.

$ blender
ndof: using SpaceNavigator

See also

• 3dconnexion linux forum
• Source of C program used
• Information about libXm.so.4 and libXm.so.3
• Website of the open source driver spacenav
• Community Wiki about Spacemice