This looks soooo nice.  And the video is beautiful.

I saw you flip quickly past the spacenavd website in the video, while saying that you didn't want it to get complicated on the software side.  I was going to suggest it because It buys you compatibility with a broad range of applications -- anything that supports a Spacemouse.  

But the custom firmware -> USB approach is good too. 

I actually do both: run spacenavd for those applications that use it, and a custom userspace (Python, probably too slow) program to push mouse/keyboard commands to applications that otherwise wouldn't.  Mostly scrolling in PDFs and webpages and scrubbing/jogging in Audacity.  

I guess where I'm going with this is that it might also be cool to have multiple profiles, or at least a quick way of reflashing the device.  At least it's fun to play around with. You might find you like using it as a more general controller.

Thank you! 

Yes, It's definitely on my list for the next iteration. The keyboard and mouse emulation for CAD is not ideal and should be changed to a proper motion HID report like the real thing or maybe at least a gamepad? That way it could work with spacenavd (I think). 

Having different profiles and a way to customize sensitivity, invert axis and add shortcuts from a GUI is also a great idea. Thanks for your input!