So I received a package from Australia yesterday and, in it, was an astroid 6000 from spacial freedom. What is an astroid? To quote from spatial freedom’s website:
The
has a ball that you lightly push, pull and twist with your fingertips in any 3D direction to move a 3D computer graphic object around with complete spatial freedom on the screen.
As my loyal readers will know, I’ve been using a SpacePilot for about a year. I won’t lie, I love it. However, I have every intention of giving the astroid a fair shake. I wouldn’t be much of a reviewer if I had a biased opinion, now would I?
My toys, side-by-side:
Presently, the astroid can be used with Solid Edge® and SolidWorks®. Drivers for UGS NX 3, NX 4 and PTC Pro/Engineer® Wildfire 3 are due in Q1 2007. A timeline for Autodesk Inventor® drivers hasn’t been determined. Not that any of you care as you are all committed SolidWorks users, right?
The astroid is an affordable US$149 (plus $15 S&H). That’s quite a bit cheaper than the US$499 for the SpacePilot. If the astroid performs as well as the SpacePilot, it will definitely give it a run for its money.
I’ll be setting up the astroid today, so keep checking back to see how things are progressing.
