Only a Week Left to Make This New Spaceball 3D Mouse Happen
John Hilton wants to revive the Spaceball through the Spaceball Phoenix Project on Indiegogo and needs your help.
Computer mice were invented to work on the 2D plane of a monitor screen, which is an issue when you’re working in a 3D environment. In the early 1980s, John Hilton began developed what would become the first Spaceball mouse, which was a big hit among professionals in various 3D modeling and design industries. Now Hilton wants to revive the Spaceball through the Spaceball Phoenix Project on Indiegogo.
Hilton remained involved in the development of various Spaceball models as their IP and patents jumped from one corporate entity to another. But he forged his own path in 2001, right around the same time that Labtec merged with Logitech and the Spaceball was passed by Logitech to their 3DConnexion subsidiary.
Today, 3DConnexion sells the SpaceMouse line of 3D mice and they’re fairly popular in the CAD world. But Hilton’s last design was the Astroid 6000, launched in 2005 by his Spatial Freedom company. Sadly, Hilton was unable to compete with 3DConnexion’s resources and Spatial Freedom went dormant.
Now, Hilton is back with the Spaceball Phoenix Project. Through that crowdfunding campaign, Hilton hopes to put Spatial Freedom back on the map with the Astroid 7000.
Like all other Spaceball 3D mice, the Hilton designed the Astroid 7000 specifically for 3D CAD and modeling work. Users can manipulate the large 3D ball to orient their model in 3D space, then use the 16 programmable buttons to activate tools, like extrude in CAD or flatten in Blender. Hilton is confident that you can keep your left hand on the Astroid 7000 and your right hand on your regular mouse — no need to move a hand to the keyboard.
As someone who spends a lot of time in CAD, the Astroid 7000 is very appealing to me. I’m sure it will appeal to a lot of you, too. But Hilton needs your help to make it happen. There are only a few days left in the Indiegogo campaign and it has only raised A$4,198 of the A$80,000 goal.
If you want the Astroid 7000 to become a reality, you can back the campaign and get the wired version for as little as A$259.00.