An earlier post had mentioned online panoramas.  Creating these shots was often quite expensive, requiring high end cameras and special motorized mounts.  Now we might be seeing many more of these displays as researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed an inexpensive robotic device that can be attached to any standard digital camera.

The device will cause the camera to pan and tilt while repeatedly clicking the shutter to capture many different shots, ranging from tens to thousands, and meshing them together to create massive high resolution images. The resulting images can then be viewed from numerous angles and zoomed to see any section in high detail.  Such is the level of detail that on reviewing these photos, it is often possible to discover many things too small to notice when they were originally taken.

One technical advantage to the system is that a user can use a telephoto lens rather than a wide angle one, ensuring more depth and detail.  Carnegie  Mellon has provided a site where people can share their photos:  www.gigapan.org). Read more in Novelties: Sweeping Panoramas, Courtesy of a Robot.