Instead of a video, the members of Metrix Create:Space in Seattle, Washington posted a self-guided virtual tour. There is a link to a professional photographer in the area that specializes in this kind of thing. We assume he’s a member and would love to know if he hacked his own setup to capture the spherical panoramas.
The image above looks toward the front entrance. To the right is a cafe type counter which even offers a menu board listing membership prices but also time rentals on things like one hour in the solder room. The tour includes shots from 11 vantage points highlighting each portion of the space. This includes everything you might expect (3d printing, laser cutting, electronic prototyping) but a few you don’t. There’s a toddler-safe play area (we hear that the Kansas City hackerspace has one of these too), and a huge pick and place machine.
All I got to say is, First I got to take a trip to seattle, and second, Why drinks TAB, and Y would u have a mini-fridge full of it…
I’m guessing nobody drinks Tab, so they picked up the Tab machine for free…
I’ve done them with professional pano heads, but you can also build your own:
http://rasterweb.net/raster/projects/panohead/
For stitching the images, Hugin does a great job:
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
and then Pano2VR for putting it all together:
http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2vr.php
Boom. :)
Hello, I am the photographer. Thanks for featuring the tour!
The shots were made using a panorama head from 360Precision (Adjuste), Canon 5DMKII w/Canon 8-15mm @15mm and associated lens ring mount from Nodal Ninja, Promote Control for extended the bracketing. The bracketed shots were combined using Enfuse GUI, stitching done with PTGui Pro and post production in Photoshop. Viewer is Krpano.
That “Tab” cooler was also rocking several cans of Vernors. Which is a very rare and welcome find in this neck of the woods!
New “action” panoramas will come soon featuring people working on various projects at Metrix.
Good job. I really like the place. Even though I do have a nice basement workshop, I don’t have all the cool toys (ie, laser cutter, 3D printer). Too bad its on the wrong coast!
The breaking glass sound effect was a nice touch.
Is there a way to view the tour without flash? I won’t do flash.
lol
So, this is a commercial business.
So, that’s how the world works. TANSTAAFL
;-)
It is a commercial business, which has some major drawbacks. Need something lasercut? Gonna cost you lots of $$. Not sure the exact settings you need to get the cut/engraving you want? You better hope the person operating the laser cutter knows what they are doing! And if they don’t, you pay full price for a bunch of useless materials. My last experience was at a community-ran hackerspace and it was much better. Metrix has nice equipment, but I don’t find the environment inviting to hack in.
I’m sorry, but I’d trust the dudes that maintain and run a laser cutter for a job way more than some community lab’s laser with questionable maintenance logs. I’ve given them over $5k of laser cutting job business in the last 3 years. They’ve always done a kick ass job for me and they are *fast*. I challenge you to find a place that turns around a laser job faster in town. I can literally email in a job at the end of my work day, drive to pick it up and have the parts on my production line at 7am the next morning.
Yes, that is enough to pay for a small Chinese laser cutter. But I’m also paying for the expertise behind it and not to have to worry about swapping laser tubes, aligning mirrors, etc. $2.00 per minute to cut is more than reasonable – the only reason you’d bitch about that is if you didn’t have to pay for laser tubes and electricity, neither of them are free.
Not to mention that as a business, they have regular hours (in this case, noon to midnight, 7 days a week). I don’t have to wait and hope that some community member with a key is around to let me in to use the laser and hope that the laser is working. There is a value to pay for convenience and reliability and Metrix’s value proposition is pretty hard to beat.
Thank you for posting that – I was on the point of posting something along very similar lines. Totally agree.
the place has a lot of cool stuff but it also kinda looks like a hoarder lives there
THIS is a hoarder for you LOL! (another place I’ve shot)-
http://www.bohonus.com/galleries/personal-projects/steves-weird-house/
holy crap! freaky stuff but cool.
Wow.. What a space. To me this seems like at really nice place to be. I like that its not too tidy (as if any hackerspace really is).
I also noticed the dodgy wiring around the light bulb in the children’s playground. Hats of to you. ;-)
I got the chance to stop by Metrix when I was in Seattle for the holidays. Folks there were gracious about sharing input on projects. They have an impressive array of tools and, importantly, they all work. If you are in the Seattle area or find yourself passing through, I would definitely recommend going.
Tab is awesome!
Ah metrix. The place that charges you $10 an hour to borrow a screwdriver.
Actually, their rates are posted. It’s $5.00 for every hand tool in the shop:
http://metrixcreatespace.com/rates
But given your attitude and ignorance, maybe you best stay away.
The rates you are quoting are walk-in rates. Membership rates are lower. The walk in rates really don’t seem like a bad deal to me. Looks like a cool place.
i’ve been here! it’s in the basement next to a super good burger joint called Deluxe. GET THERE. They charge machine time by the stinkiness of the material, which i thought was pretty entertaining.
Cool space, great photography. It would be cool to implement this on a concave screen. The distortion makes one a little dizzy on a flat screen, like my old safety goggles :P
I have spend ALOT of time at Metrix, and really enjoyed it. Between the soldering classes and the chats that I had with other guests at Metrix, the price is justified. The owner is a photo junkie, and will talk with you about his nikons… I have meg MANY Boeing engineers, Red hat staff, and plenty of Microsoft’s younger bunch. As I remember they are open until 2am, 7 days a week; it’s a great place to bring a laptop and hop on the wifi. Capital Hill is right outside, where they are parades, and events. I brought my girlfriend inside Metrix, and they were more than happy to strike up a conversation… The commute is fine via cab or auto, but the bike ride or walk is awful!!
Enjoy these places while they last!
Went there this weekend. It’s cool and membership was reasonable. Bookstore called Ada around the corner stocks adafruit kits and an impressive range of decent tech books