In what's being billed as "Design Excellence for Engineers," 3DConnexion, maker of 3D input peripherals, launched the SpacePilot Pro this week. It's one of the grooviest looking mice we've ever seen and comes with a ton of goodies for CAD professionals, including an integrated color LCD display.

"The SpacePilot Pro's LCD Worldflow Assistant gives at-a-glance visibility, whether it's email, calendar events, or RSS feeds," said Deiter Neujahr, 3DConnexions president. "It's push technology but the user can easily customize what they do and don't want to see. The intention is to focus you on your design work, with fewer interruptions to your workflow and less clutter on your main display."

Other features include keyboard modifiers (ESC, CTRL, ALT, SHIFT), 3D mouse keys, a SpaceNavigator knob capable of left/right, up/down, forward/backward, tilt, spin, and roll maneuvers, function keys, several applets, and a bunch more.

Gamers need not apply, but if you're into CAD, the svelte SpacePilot Pro might be just what you're looking for, provided you're willing to drop $500 on an input peripheral.

Full review of the mouse here.

Image Credit: 3DConnexion