Received this from one of the Zackenberg biologists. It is extraordinary how they can get so much detail. At the moment I am not sure how they get this resolution and am not sure if it would be applicable in environments where small individual flowers are to be counted.
Gigavision demo from TimeScience on Vimeo. Annotation tool.
Joel's Blog 
Hey Joel
just thought you might find this link interesting in reference to the above post. Likely you already know the specs of gigavision project you link about, but it immediately made me think of this Gigapan system which perhaps they are using in the gigavision project. Anyway, it illustrates how you can get such high res detail from stitching images with an automated and mechanical system…anyway, I want one!
http://gigapan.org/
Hey Ian.
WOW, this is a great link. It does look a lot like gigavision. The thing that I like about gigapan is that you can buy the “robot” (what makes the panoramas) and then you can stitch the images with whatever you want. This potentially gives you great control on how the stitching is done. They also sell their own stitching software (which is cool) but it does not work on Linux (which is not cool). Another thing to notice is that the “big” camera mount -the one that can handle an SLR camera- is 900 USD. Its not excessively expensive, but its not cheap either :) (You would also need a pretty sturdy tripod).
Thx for the link.