Spacemouse / 3D Mouse Training - Rings

So you built/bought a CAD mouse; how the heck do you use it? This is a short training guide to hone your skills or adjust sensitivities to improve your experience with this wonderful peripheral.
 

Download the file and load into your prefered CAD software. It is recommended to color one or both of the rings (Green and gray will be used in this instruction)

1. Concentricity
   • Starting from an isometric view, use the 3D mouse, to align the green and gray rings such that one completely overlaps the other.
   • The view should be perfectly normal (perpendicular) to the screen
2. Position/panning
   • With the rings perfectly concentric, pan the screen to each on the 4 corners of the window.
   • Start upper left, to lower right, to upper right, to lower left
   • The rings must stay perfectly concentric
3. Parallelism
   • Start from an isometric view
   • Align the rings in the center of your screen such that they appear to be to vertical bars
   • Horizontal alignment is also allowed and recommended as additional practice.
4. Parallel Orbit
   • Keep the rings parallel as described in exercise 5
   • Orbit the parallel bars around the center of the screen
   • The bars should remain perfectly parallel
5. Concentric Orbit
   • Align the two rings to be concentric (See exercise 1)
   • Offset the front ring such that the center aligns with the band of the rear ring
   • Orbit/rotate the view such that the center of the front ring does not leave the rear ring.
   • This should be done clockwise and counterclockwise
6. Perspective
   • Turn on perspective view
   • Align the rings to be concentric; you should be able to see part of the rear ring in the center of the front ring.
   • Rotate the view such that the top inner edge of the front ring is tangent with the inner top edge of the rear ring
   • Orbit the view 360 CW and CCW to maintain tangency all around
      

Keep practicing and if you come up with more training ideas using this model add a comment!