The Orbita Mouse provides vastly improved scrolling of your documents, web pages and spreadsheets with its fluid, precise and intuitive spinning action. For media applications, the Orbita combines mouse and jog wheel functions in a single device and allows direct rotational control of on-screen knobs. For 3D applications, the Orbita can provide true 3D rotation by combining normal mouse movement with the additional rotation axis.

The Orbita Mouse is round so that it can be spun and used at any angle of rotation. The mouse has inbuilt electronic compass technology which allows it to self-orientate so that it can be rotated freely. Like the iPod click wheel, you can continuously scroll with a fluid rotational motion.

The main problem with the original 'Puck Mouse' was that despite being perfectly round for stylistic reasons, it had to be used in a particular orientation just like any other normal mouse. This meant that it was easy to pick it up at the wrong angle which made it seem erratic.

The Orbita Mouse, on the other hand, uses its inbuilt compass to maintain orientation no matter what angle it is rotated to. Other differences include the buttons, which cover much of the Orbita's top surface and can be clicked (or squeezed) from any angle; and of course that the Orbita has a really good reason to be round: it spins!

No, most users become familiar with the Orbita after an hour or so, and don't want to go back to a normal scroll wheel mouse. The scrolling action of the mouse is very natural and most users find no trouble getting used to it. It takes a little time to completely relax your hand to suit the gentle touch that the Orbita allows.

Because some users have found this to be a problem at first, we supply two 'Feet Rings' with different feet materials. The red ring is a little bit grippy and is great for very slippery surfaces and for users who are just starting out. The blue ring has smooth gliding feet and is the preferred choice after using the Orbita for a little while. The blue ring is also preferable for use on neoprene / cloth mouse pads.

The natural, fluid 'dialling' action and gentle touch needed to spin the mouse encourages a relaxed hand and arm position and avoids the repetitive finger action of a scroll wheel. Also, the design of the buttons allows users to operate the mouse with a variety of hand positions and clicking combinations, for example left click can be operated by one or more fingers. Further, because the mouse is self-orientating there is no need to firmly grip the mouse with your hand; you only need to use a combination of gentle hand motions to guide, rotate and click the mouse.

The mouse, when rotated, sends standard Scroll Wheel data. So, any application that responds to Scroll Wheel input will work with the Orbita without any special software.

Also, the Orbita can be mapped to a range of non-mouse data including keyboard, multimedia (volume control etc) and 'multi-axis controller' which is a generic non-mouse motion controller. The software for configuring these mappings is only available for Windows at this stage. But, until the OS X version is completed, a workaround is to configure the Orbita under Windows then attach it to a Mac, as it retains its configuration internally.

The Orbita works effectively as a scroll mouse, with the rotation of the mouse sending vertical or horizontal scroll commands. To operate a certain control, you can move the mouse pointer in the normal mouse fashion with the Orbita, then rotate the Orbita to operate the control. Please note that the exact operation depends on your software application; for example some applications operate controls just by rolling the mouse over them then spinning, while some 'lock on' to a control after clicking or right-clicking it. Any application which is compatible with a scroll mouse will work with the Orbita.

The Orbita Mouse is in fact a '3 Degrees of Freedom' or '3 DOF' device. These are X, Y and 'Yaw' - or rotation on the desk. Having 3 Degrees of Freedom is very useful for controlling the rotation of objects in 3D, as each of the of the 3 axes in 3D space can be directly and simultaneously controlled.

A normal scroll mouse can also be described as a 3 DOF device, if you consider the scroll wheel as a Degree of Freedom. But, since the scroll wheel operates essentially in the same direction as moving the mouse forwards and backwards, it is not a true Degree of Freedom like the rotation of the Orbita.

Also, a typical scroll wheel has a resolution of 32 Counts per Rotation (CPR) which is much less precise than the X/Y movement of the mouse. The rotation of the Orbita has a much higher resolution of 256 CPR which makes it much more suited to 3D manipulation tasks than a scroll wheel.

The Orbita is completely compatible with a normal 3-button scroll mouse. As such, it is compatible with all CAD programs.

Whatever the normal action of the scroll wheel is in your application, spinning the Orbita will achieve the same action but with greater precision and fluidity. In many CAD applications this will control zooming.

For Sketchup Users on Windows, there is now a Sketchup plugin available to enable 3D Orbit (model rotation) control using the Orbita Mouse.

In addition, we are currently working with the vendors of various CAD applications to investigate new ways of using the Orbita to provide additional benefits. For example, there is excellent potential to use the rotation of the Orbita to provide true 3D rotation control which solves a common frustration of using 3D programs with a 2D mouse.

No. Although the Orbita Mouse looks a little like the Space Navigator they are quite different. The Orbita Mouse is just like a normal mouse except that it can spin freely; whereas the Space Navigator is a little more like a joystick where the base stays in one place and the top is spring loaded, with a fixed range of movement in all directions.

The Orbita can replace your day-to-day mouse and improve all of your tasks in general scrolling, media and more specialised applications like 3D. The Space Navigator is designed to be used in addition to your mouse, specifically for 3D tasks.

The Orbita Mouse works as a standard USB / HID mouse and will work on Linux. However, at this time, the configuration software is only provided for Windows and Mac. As a workaround, the mouse can be configured on a PC or Mac then used in Linux, as it retains its configuration internally. Many basic configration tasks like changing pointer speed and swapping buttons can be achieved with standard system controls.

We are considering publishing the configuration protocol for the Orbita Mouse if there is interest in developing open source configuration software for it.

Vista Enhanced Wheel Support (Smooth Scroll) essentially it increases the scroll resolution so that documents scroll 1/4 of a line at a time instead of 1 line at a time. The overall effect is the appearance smoother scrolling. While it is a neat feature, and is well suited to the Orbita Mouse because of it's improved scroll resolution, it is by no means essential to the operation of the mouse.

The Orbita works beautifully in Windows XP, giving very fast and fluid scrolling. With its control panel, the Orbita also has a wide range of customisation options for scroll speed.