ow do you achieve a 1,000-megapixel print, a photographic print of such incredible detail that zooms down to a tiny percentage of its area reveal sharp features hidden in a subject?

Graham Flint's Gigapxl Project is breaking new ground in demonstrating just how much detail you can get using film and ultra-high-resolution digital techniques.

The resolution is incredible as can be seen by the new images being produced using his self-designed camera and posted at www.gigapxl.org.

In the "Image Gallery" try the image of Bixby Bridge in the Big Sur, California.

It's a wide-angled landscape scene of a bridge spanning a ravine looking over a steep coastline.

Subsequent zoomed images show more detail of the bridge and then an individual looking out over the view from the bridge.

A final zoom to 0.05 percent of the original area (yes that's the correct percentage) reveals a logo on the left sleeve of his shirt.

You can see the logo text, the person's lips, ear lobe and bunching in has shirt.

Flint is an American physicist with many backgrounds, including stints designing and operating spy cameras used by the US military.

He began the project in a bid to bring together the cutting edges of photographic optics, film technology and digital processing to produce 1,000-megapixel prints.

Flint and his team use 9"?18" format film and a 480mm custom designed lens to take their shots.

The camera and its tripod weigh in at 108.5 pounds hauled up hills and mountains. All this to achieve the ultimate 1,000-megapixel print though high-resolution digital scanning and then printing.

Remember the current crop of popular consumer digital cameras currently achieve between six and seven megapixel resolution.

For the record, a better-than-average 35-millimetre camera and film combination can yield images with the equivalent of about 12 megapixels; thereby permitting enlargement to 8?12 inches before loss of sharpness becomes an issue.

The team has created software to "overcome the physical limitations of his cameras, lenses, and sensors to produce images from an idealised perfect camera.

The team is using the technology to capture all of UNESCO's 788 World Heritage Sites using the Gigapxl camera.

For those of us who remain fans of the "old" film format the Gigapxl project is an optimistic sign that silver and gelatine is not going to be left behind with the advent of digital cameras.

Film is part of the revolution in the digital world.

For another use of imagery on the Internet check out Architecture Design's use of 3D models in its creation of an archive of great architectural works online.

At the 3D section of Great Buildings Online (www.greatbuildings.com) you can take a virtual walk through hundreds of free architectural computer models.

There's a link to the free DesignWorkshop Lite architectural 3D walkthrough software at the section.

You must download the software to begin your "walk".

The more detailed models come complete with furnishings and landscaping.

The software works for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP users and you need a good amount of computing power to really enjoy the demonstration.

Test out the full version of Google's desktop search engine, a clever piece of software designed to burrow through your hard drive. The new version expands on the beta version by being able to search hard drives for information in PDF format and for music and video files.

The software will also search for files in Outlook E-mail, Outlook Express, AOL Instant Messenger, Netscape Mail, Thunderbird, Word, Explorer/Netscape/Firefox/Mozilla, Excel, Powerpoint.

However lots of other file types, such as Apple's iTunes, are not covered. Google is providing willing developers the documentation to write plug ins for other file types.

Get working at http://desktop.google.com. Google Desktop Search is available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above.

If you need to secure a domain name under the new ".eu" extension about to be launched then go to EURid's Internet site at www.eurid.org. Currently a lot of spam is being sent to businesses claiming to act as registrars for the new extension.

EURid, a consortium of Belgian, Italian and Swedish organisations will operate as the ".eu" registry.

The consortium warns that there are no accredited ".eu" registrars at this time and it is not possible to pre-register an ".eu" name.

You must have a registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the European Community to receive an ".eu" domain name.

EC organisations and residents within the European Community will also be able to register domain names under the designation.

EURid plans to accredit a network of ".eu" registrars across Europe.

A list will be published on the organisation's web site so watch that space if you have an interest.