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Using input devices Motivation

There are more input devices besides the mouse:

Joysticks

Six-degree-of-freedom devices (6DOF) such as a Polhemus, Bird, SpaceBall, Magellan, Ultrasonic tracker, etc.

Button, knobs, sliders

Read from any physical input device:

Use the serial-device standard extension

Use the networking API

Use the Java-to-C interface

Java 3D provides an input device abstraction to:

Encapsulate device-specific details behind a generic interface

Enable painless integration of new input devices within existing Java applications