The Gigapan camera
system was originally a collaborative development between Google,
Carnegie Mellon University and NASA Ames Intelligent Systems Division's
Robotics Group. While it's not a camera per se, it is a highly
intelligent robotic platform that holds a high resolution camera on
board. In order to create the ultra-high resolution images, the robotic
armature moves using mathematical pinpoints to photograph a scene and
after taking the first shot it then re-aims with great precision, to
take another photograph. Once the scene has been fully captured, the
system then stitches all of the elements together to create one huge
photograph, in this case, a 260-megapixel shot of the Bugatti Veyron Bleu Centienne.