I just got a 3D Connexion SpaceNavigator which is a kind of 3D input device(mouse/stick). It is cool to use when 3D modeling content for JavaFX but I thought it would be even better if I could navigate my JavaFX 3D scenes using it. I managed to hack some quick code to get it working in JavaFX. Many thanks to the JInput project, they made it super easy. Its super fun so I recoded a little video to share with you.

SpaceNavigator with JavaFX from Jasper Potts on Vimeo.

The code really is very simple, I just have a AnimationTimer that every frame checks to get the current inputs from device and applies them to the camera transforms. The device via jinput provides 6 floats for each axis and 2 booleans for the buttons, so could not be easier to connect to your app. Below is complete 3D app with a simple cube. I will be working on getting the object importers out in open source for you to use very soon 🙂

public class InputTestBlog extends Application {
    private ControllerEnvironment controllerEnvironment;
    private Controller spaceNavigator;
    private Component[] components;
    private Translate translate;
    private Rotate rotateX,rotateY,rotateZ;

    @Override public void start(Stage stage) throws Exception {
        controllerEnvironment = ControllerEnvironment.getDefaultEnvironment();
        Controller[] controllers = controllerEnvironment.getControllers();
        for(Controller controller: controllers){
            if ("SpaceNavigator".equalsIgnoreCase(controller.getName())){
                spaceNavigator = controller;
                System.out.println("USING Device ["+controller.getName()+"] of type ["+controller.getType().toString()+"]");
                components = spaceNavigator.getComponents();
            }
        }

        Group root = new Group();
        Scene scene = new Scene(root, 1024, 768, true);
        stage.setScene(scene);
        scene.setFill(Color.GRAY);
        // CAMERA
        final PerspectiveCamera camera = new PerspectiveCamera(true);
        scene.setCamera(camera);
        root.getChildren().add(camera);
        // BOX
        Box testBox = new Box(5,5,5);
        testBox.setMaterial(new PhongMaterial(Color.RED));
        testBox.setDrawMode(DrawMode.LINE);
        root.getChildren().add(testBox);
        // MOVE CAMERA
        camera.getTransforms().addAll(
                rotateY = new Rotate(-20, Rotate.Y_AXIS),
                rotateX = new Rotate(-20, Rotate.X_AXIS),
                rotateZ = new Rotate(0, Rotate.Z_AXIS),
                translate = new Translate(5, -5, -15)
        );
        // SHOW STAGE
        stage.show();
        // CHECK FOR INPUT
        if (spaceNavigator != null) {
            new AnimationTimer() {
                @Override public void handle(long l) {
                    if (spaceNavigator.poll()) {
                        for(Component component: components) {
                            switch(component.getName()) {
                                case "x":
                                    translate.setX(translate.getX() + component.getPollData());
                                    break;
                                case "y":
                                    translate.setY(translate.getY()+component.getPollData());
                                    break;
                                case "z":
                                    translate.setZ(translate.getZ()+component.getPollData());
                                    break;
                                case "rx":
                                    rotateX.setAngle(rotateX.getAngle()+component.getPollData());
                                    break;
                                case "ry":
                                    rotateY.setAngle(rotateY.getAngle()+component.getPollData());
                                    break;
                                case "rz":
                                    rotateZ.setAngle(rotateZ.getAngle()+component.getPollData());
                                    break;
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }.start();
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.setProperty("net.java.games.input.librarypath", new File("lib").getAbsolutePath());
        launch(args);
    }
}