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Participant
Oct 15, 2018 10:58 PM UTC
Answered

3D Mouse Support for Illustrator

I am aware that this has been asked before, but I have not found an adequate answer.

I have always disliked the methods used by Illustrator for pan and zoom functions.

I have been using a program called X-Mouse Button Control to remap the functions of the mouse wheel and middle click to pan and zoom operations. For panning, this works well: Middle click to pan. In X-Mouse, the middle click is replaced with a macro that will hold the space key, and simulate a click/hold of the left mouse button. This allows panning in a way that is similar to many other programs I use daily.

The zoom, however, is a bit more difficult. By remapping the mouse-wheel-up/mouse-wheel-down to include holding the 'alt' key, I can zoom in and out. The issue appears when I hover over the Transform dimensions and/or position of an object. Since the 'alt' key is held, it copies the selected object at each click of the wheel. While this can make for some very interesting geometric designs, it is no quite what I'm after.

I've recently acquired a 3Dconnexion Space Navigator for AutoCAD work. It has improved my workflow tremendously in AutoCAD.

I reached out to 3Dconnexion about support for Illustrator, and they placed the ball squarely in your court, Adobe!

What say ye? Can we get simple Pan/Zoom control for our 3D devices?

/end rant

Thanks for listening.

Srishti_Bali
Srishti_BaliCorrect answer
Legend
Oct 16, 2018 1:59 PM UTC

Hi David,

I would request if you can share this here on our Adobe Illustrator Feedback form. This is the best way of communicating with the Engineering and Product Management teams regarding issues and suggestions so they can be implemented in future releases.

Regards,

Srishti

4 replies

Participant
Oct 16, 2026 4:45 PM UTC

Made a basic illustrator plugin to support pan and zoom. Supports an older spacemouse right now. 
https://github.com/starkknows/adobe-illustrator-spacemouse

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Participant
Nov 15, 2025 6:06 PM UTC

bump. Did something happen with this?

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Harshika Verma
Community Manager
Community Manager
Nov 20, 2025 9:10 AM UTC

Hi samgrudge,


Thank you for reaching out. I assume you're looking for similar functionality mentioned here. If yes, would you mind adding your vote and comment to the UserVoice page? Meanwhile, we will also check with the product team for updates on this.

 

Thanks,

Harshika

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Srishti_Bali
Srishti_BaliCorrect answer
Legend
Oct 16, 2018 1:59 PM UTC

Hi David,

I would request if you can share this here on our Adobe Illustrator Feedback form. This is the best way of communicating with the Engineering and Product Management teams regarding issues and suggestions so they can be implemented in future releases.

Regards,

Srishti

Translate