This is an experimental project to test the effectiveness of using a Microsoft Xbox controller to navigate in 3d web applications built using Esri's ArcGIS API for JavaScript. This work was inspired by a customer that illustrated the difficulty of navigating underwater in a custom web application.
Click here for the live application.
Click here for the source code.
To date we have only testing the app on Windows 10 desktops. We suspect that drivers for both Xbox 360 and Xbox One controllers are bundled with Windows 10.
How Do I Fly?
| Button/Axis | Description |
|---|
| Left Axis | Horizontal movement. Adjust to move the observer forward, back, left and right. |
| Right Axis | Look. Adjust to change the horizontal and vertical angle of observation. |
| Left Trigger | Descend. |
| Right Trigger | Ascend. |
| Left Bumper | Zoom to previous web scene slide. |
| Right Bumper | Zoom to next web scene slide. |
| A Button (green) | Perform identify on the currently selected scene layer object. |
| B Button (red) | Hide identify window. |
| Menu Button | Show controller button map. |
| Start Button | Reset controller. This is used to reset the "at rest" values for the controller. |
Don't Like This Map?
By default, the application loads this San Diego web scene. This can be customized with a webscene url argument, for example.
https://richiecarmichael.github.io/gamepad/index.html?webscene=f85419bfd3414e1696c389dd9b6e9360
Known Issues
- When the app starts, the camera may spontaneously creep without any controller interaction. Occasionally it may be an erratic spin. To correct this, after a few seconds press the start button. This will reset the controller.
- Occasionally when the app starts, scene layers (e.g. buildings) may no fully load. To correct this refresh the browser and wait 5-10 seconds before using the controller.
Caveats
- The app is experimental. The app is based on draft implementations of the gamepad API in modern browsers (see W3C and MDN for details).
- The app has not been tested with a Sony PlayStation controller.
