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Wanting Input

Apr 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By S.D. Katz

Trade in your standard-issue mouse for a new, more functional input device.

In any big digital facility, nine out of 10 workstations use a standard-issue keyboard and mouse. That's too bad. Choosing a mouse should be as personal as choosing a car, especially since you'll probably spend more time in front of a monitor than a dashboard — unless you're addicted to Grand Theft Auto.

Before you drop $50 to $100 on a new mouse, here are a few things you should know.

First, look at performance: Mice must be accurate and fast. Accuracy is measured in dots per inch (dpi) and refers to how finely you can place your cursor on the screen. A few years ago, most mice were in the 400dpi to 600dpi range. Today, 800dpi of precision is considered high performance for detailed graphics work, even though gamers are looking at mice with up to 1600dpi of precision.

Mouse speed is a combination of sampling rate and throughput. Sampling rate is the number of pictures the mouse takes, measured in frames per second. That's right, optical mice take pictures of the surface they travel over and compare the images to estimate motion. Agilent Technologies supplies the optical sensors for this now-dominant technology to just about every mouse maker. Although not everyone publishes the frame rate of their mice, today's optical-performance mice are in the 2,000fps to 3,000fps range. Razer's Diamondback mouse is the fastest, clocking in at 6,400fps.

This is a lot of data to move every second, which is why corded mice provide better performance than wireless or infrared mice. At least, that's the traditional wisdom. The limitations of wireless mice are not insurmountable, and in 2005 it's likely that ultra-high-performance gaming mice will go wireless.

After performance, the main reasons to buy a new mouse are to get rid of the cord and get features like scroll wheels or programmable buttons. Programmable buttons allow you to create the equivalent of hot keys to perform specific tasks on your mouse. This and ergonomic designs let you work faster while reducing the possibility of repetitive-stress injuries. However, one unaddressed ergonomic issue is that mice in the popular kidney shape and other asymmetrical designs are frequently available for right-handed users only.

Although hardwired mice are still available, the future is unplugged: either radio frequency (RF) or infrared (IR). Mice makers are also moving to new ways of sampling motion. Today, optical is the main technology; however, at least one manufacturer offers laser tracking. Trackball input devices are also available — the best solution if you have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS).

Sans Cables

Although it's great to get rid of 3ft. of cable on your desk, cordless mice require batteries that have to be charged or replaced. Unlike the ones in your wristwatch, mice batteries may last only a few months — or, under heavy use, a few weeks. Some batteries have to be removed for charging, so see if there is a base station that charges the batteries while they are in the mouse. In any case, there will be some kind of base station whether the system is RF or IR. Each system has advantages.

Infrared is an optical technology that requires line of sight — an issue if you have a messy desktop or a keyboard drawer that places the mouse below the level of the desk. IR is less expensive than RF and is not affected by interference from other devices, such as cell or portable phones. It is also a closed system not vulnerable to being hacked.

Radio-frequency wireless systems are easy to set up and work from any angle. However, they are more costly and are vulnerable to interference from radio communication such as a cordless phone (although this seems to be a rare occurrence). This raises the privacy issue. If you use an RF system, then nearby users are able to hack your system.

The Options

If you're in the market for a mouse, there are a wide variety of choices available.

Logitech MX510: This is a workhorse corded mouse based on Logitech's MX optical engine. The engine is actually a camera that captures 4.7 megapixels per second to translate hand motion smoothly to the screen.

The MX510 is for righties only and has five contact points on the bottom that let the mouse glide over the desk surface. I switched from the mouse that ships with a Mac G4 to the MX510 and immediately noticed how much more smoothly the 510 handled. It certainly has allowed me to draw more accurate marquis selections in Photoshop.

The MX510 is programmable with five buttons and a scroll wheel in addition to the usual right and left buttons. It's worth getting a new mouse for the scroll wheel feature by itself. The wheel saves lots of unnecessary gesturing and is more accurate for searching two- to three-page chunks. For bigger leaps through a document, you still have to access a window scroll bar. There are also two Cruise Control buttons above and below the scroll wheel that provide forward and backward auto scrolling at a constant pace. The motion is a bit chunky, so I end up using the manual scroll bar most of the time.

The application switch is a relatively new feature that lets you go forward or backward one page at a time using two buttons. On the left side of the mouse, two buttons for web navigation sit above where your thumb rests. The front button moves you one page ahead in a web browser, and the rear button moves you backward. It takes a while to locate the buttons without repositioning your hand, and even then the chance of hitting the wrong button is great. This leads to a common drawback of button-crazy mice — there's no good place to grab to move them. The problem is that your fingers don't work independently, so you tend to move them in groups and end up squeezing a lot more than the sculpted areas of the mouse. My guess is that, after a week or two, you'll begin to retrain your hand according to the design of the mouse.

The MX510 is one of the most popular mice on the market. But now that I've been testing cordless mice for a few weeks, its 3ft. of cable really annoys me. However, the precision of its tracking and the easy-glide feel of the desktop make this a big improvement over standard three-button mice. Installation was straightforward, and the mouse worked without a hitch after I plugged it into my Mac keyboard. With the scroll feature included this is a good productivity tool for around $70. For Mac OS X and Windows.

Logitech MX1000: This latest offering from Logitech is the follow-up to the highly regarded MX700 cordless optical mouse and combines RF wireless operation with a laser tracking system for extremely high precision on any surface. Optical systems are pretty good in this regard but have trouble with glass and highly polished surfaces. The low-intensity laser sends images to a 5.6-megapixel sensor, capturing more surface detail than the LED used in optical mice, including Logitech's own MX510. According to Logitech, the low-power laser sensor is 20 times more sensitive than optical sensors.

The MX1000 is similar to the MX510 but with several improvements. First, a new lighter Lithium-ion rechargeable battery replaces the AA batteries used in the MX700. The battery is not user-replaceable, but Li-ions are good for 500 full charges, and a charge lasts about two weeks (Logitech claims up to 21 days). Theoretically, this should deliver about 20 years of use without replacement. Another new (and obvious) feature is the four-level LED battery indicator. When the battery is low, just place it in the cradle. A full charge from a completely discharged battery takes about three to four hours. The final advantage of Li-ion is that it is not subject to the “memory effect” (a partially charged battery behaves as though the partial charge is the total capacity for that charge cycle).

Although some gamers prefer corded mice for the maximum throughput, Logitech claims that its RF technology is as fast as USB with refresh rates of 125Hz (125 transmissions/sec).

Logitech has also tweaked the buttons, with the forward and back buttons just above the thumb rest and the application-switch button between the forward and back buttons. This placement requires a certain finesse to avoid inadvertently changing applications. Logitech borrowed the design of the new and improved scroll wheel, with a tiltable version of the kind introduced by Microsoft. This allows the user to scroll horizontally by tilting the wheel left or right.

You can place the base station anywhere as long as it's at least 8in. from electrical devices such as LCD screens or computers. Since the receiver/base station has a range of 30ft., it doesn't have to be on the desktop. Setup is simple; I was up and running in less than 10 minutes. It's impossible to evaluate the feel and comfort other than to say that it's not for left-handed users and that I could see using this as my main input device for general work. As for the performance, the precision for graphics work is excellent, and it would be hard to go back to a corded mouse.

The only thing it's missing is a location beeper for those times when I absentmindedly misplace the mouse. Other than that, at $79.95 this would be my pick for the best all-around mouse for general graphics use.

Contour Perfit Mouse

While some input device manufacturers concentrate on performance, Contour Designs engineers its mice for comfort. In fact, its Perfit Mouse is available in small, medium, large, and extra-large for right-handers and small, medium, and large for left-handers. (Are there no extra-large left handers?) This is a corded optical mouse with 800dpi precision for Mac OS X and Windows with a PS2 or USB connection.

The Perfit mouse has received many awards for ergonomic design with a shape that is quite different from the competition. The first thing you notice is that the mouse elevates the wrist. Every other mouse I evaluated works with the hand over the mouse and the wrist and forearm dragging on the desktop. I find that my own mouse technique lets my wrist stay in one place for short motion — I push or pull the mouse or slide left to right without moving my arm. Covering more screen space requires relocating my arm and wrist to a new stationary position. This is hard on the wrist and apparently increases the risk of CTS. The Contour mouse requires overcoming bad habits, but it helps that the mouse is large. At first, this looks like an impediment to agility, but when you are not dragging your wrist around, movement is actually easier.

There are three wide buttons across the top. Right and left buttons are assigned to the common commands, and the middle button is for browsing web pages. When the middle button is selected, it works as a scroll toggle. Moving the mouse up or down with the button depressed causes the page to move in the corresponding direction.

The scroll wheel found on top of most wheel mice is on the side above the thumb on the Contour mouse. Below the thumb rest is a second rocker switch for jumping forward or backward one page at a time.

The Contour Perfit mouse has many programming options for specific tasks and programs. But I never got that far. After using the Perfit for a few days, I was unable to break my old habits and learn to draw masks in After Effects with my arm only. I accept that my inability to retrain my mouse technique is probably some kind of character flaw, but it is not an indictment of the mouse, and I would recommend this product to friends with repetitive-stress injuries. The Perfit is not as difficult to learn as a trackball, but it's not an immediate substitute for more middle-of-the-road mouse designs. It sells for $109.95.

3Dconnexion SpaceBall 5000

If idle hands are the devil's workshop, then 3Dconnexion is out to thwart Satan. I looked at the top-of-the-line SpaceBall 5000 — a rather large and solid base with a rubber control ball and 12 programmable buttons. 3Dconnexion's SpaceBall line of input devices supplement the mouse, so once you've mastered operating the control, you can navigate through 3D space while continuing to work with the mouse. A typical use is modeling in 3ds Max or Maya. You can take the object you're creating or editing, and rotate it or move it closer to or farther from the camera, while simultaneously using the mouse to pull vertices or other modeling operations. You can also move the camera or fly a plane through space.

Anyone with gaming experience will get right into the SpaceBall. The basic installation provides a couple of practice scenes to develop your motion-control skills. It takes several hours to gain real competency with the control, but within 15 minutes, you begin to get the hang of it. That's about how long it took me to decide that I liked the SpaceBall. The feel of the ball and the base is comfortable, and the control is smooth. Since it requires getting opposing muscles in the hand to move in unconventional ways, it's a bit tiring at first. But eventually you learn to relax. The programmable buttons were more of a challenge since they required moving my hand from the control ball or at least from the most natural position. A training module would be useful for the buttons as well.

SpaceBall is not just for 3D. Using it with Photoshop changes the painting experience. When used with the Wacom stylus, the mouse allows the artist to combine the function of the move tool and the zoom tool while changing the size of brushes. Even with moderate skill, I rapidly learned to paint and simultaneously move the canvas to focus on details. This is a great use of input technology and the only real breakthrough I discovered while looking at many input products. It would be interesting to combine the SpaceBall and the Wacom tablet with voice-command software to see how far this instrumentation could be taken. For now, I recommend the SpaceBall 5000 for heavy users of Maya, Softimage, 3ds Max, and Photoshop. For Windows and Linux.

MouseWare

Shareware proves it's possible to teach old mice new tricks. Here are a few products that extend the power of your mouse.

Exact Mouse 2.0; www.bitsplash
.com

This Windows-only product from BitSplash is aimed at graphics professionals. Exact Mouse augments your cursor by adding precision measuring tools. For instance, your mouse cursor can become a crosshair, or you can lock the mouse motion to a single axis. You can use the mouse to control screen grids and custom layouts with markers and rulers. You can even turn the cursor into a magnifying glass to enlarge anything under the pointer.

UltraMouse; www.fadsoft.net

This is a gestural approach to making shortcuts for frequent tasks. The program creates button menus that are triggered by move-based actions familiar to anyone acquainted with Maya's marking menus. Users can perform 20 actions, including closing applications, opening the File menu, minimizing all windows, and reloading pages.

Cool Mouse; http://Coolmouse.say-it-now.com

This productivity enhancer turns the often-overlooked middle mouse button into a workhorse for simple tasks. Once the software is in your system tray, the middle mouse button can pop up the Start menu under your cursor, minimize windows, and perform lots of other handy actions. It even has a setup option for the fourth button on Logitech mice.

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S.D. Katz is a New York-based writer/director and author of the best-selling books Shot by Shot and Cinematic Motion.

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