Using a 3D mouse can make life easier, especially when manipulating 3D geometry in CAD or CAE tools.  ANSYS and Workbench both support 3Dconnexion‘s input devices.  (The Help manual unfortunately uses the older product names of “Spaceball” and “Spacemouse”, although I believe that those particular products have been discontinued for a few years.)

SpaceNavigator

For my desktop PC, I use the cheapest SpaceNavigator product.  It’s really nice to rotate/pan/zoom 3D geometry with my left hand while using the regular mouse with my right.  It’s much easier than using a control-key modifier with the mouse to dynamically manipulate the model.

I think that the SpaceNavigator product is recently new (I got mine about 2 years ago).  Before the SpaceNavigator, I don’t recall 3Dconnexion offering an “affordable” 3D mouse (affordable meaning < $100).

SpaceTraveler3

Recently, I got an old SpaceTraveler3 off of a colleague.  It has 8 (!) buttons instead of 2 side buttons as the SpaceNavigator, but I haven’t programmed any of them but one since I can’t keep track of all of the buttons.  This is handy for my laptop computer, especially since it comes with a nice case.

ANSYS, Workbench, CFX, and ICEM CFD all support the use of 3D mice.  It seems like FLUENT, Ansoft HFSS, and Ansoft Maxwell don’t suport 3D mice yet as far as I can tell, though.

3Dconnexion also provides drivers for Linux, which are quite simple to install.  If you don’t want to use proprietary drivers, there is also spacenav.  (I tried spacenav once, although it seemed to control my regular mouse movement, so I ended up sticking with 3Dconnexion’s drivers/software since it was the same feel as the Windows version.)