The Gigapxl Project, initiated late in the year 2000 under the impetus of retired physicist Graham Flint, is a large format landscape photography and ultrahigh-resolution scanning and printing technology, developed around custom-built Gigapxl cameras and modern digital scanning and printing equipment and software.
The Project's near-term goal (last stated in 2007) is to "compile a coast-to-coast "Portrait of America"; photographing in detail, cities, parks and monuments of the US and Canada".
A stated longer-term goal relates to an effort to document thousands of cultural and archaeological sites around the world which cannot be preserved and which inevitably will deteriorate with the passage of time.
Rome's limestone structures, which have stood for thousands of years, have become victims of acid rain.
Ultrahigh-resolution, documentary photography can preserve such details for future generations.