spaceballs...

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 07/06/2011 06:22 AM, DJ Delorie wrote:
>
> g<geleem at bellsouth.net>  writes:
>
>>> It would be nice to be able to *rotate* the ball, or push it in
>>> various directions, etc.  But only if there's a sane mapping to X
>>> events.
>>
>> *roll* would be a better description than 'rotate'.
>
> Not at all, since I'm talking about spaceballs, not trackballs.
>
> A spaceball can sense not only the usual X/Y rolling motion that a
> trackball supports, but it can also sense rotation (CW/CCW) and pressure
> (think "clicking" the ball itself, in various directions (X/Y/Z)).

The terminology former co-workers of mine used, who used to operate such 
a device, was that being used in flight dynamics/robotics/3D/CAD: pitch, 
roll, yaw

Wrt. your original question, I don't know the answer. At least, with the 
fairly common Magellan/SpacePilot/SpaceExplorer/SpaceNavigator family, 
though there is some limited linux support, I gather it's still it's all 
proprietary/mostly closed-source [1].

May-be you should ask the vendor/manufacturer (in case of the 
SpaceNavigator 3dconnexion.{de,com})?

Ralf

[1] For further reading http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/60918
seems to be a good start.