Next time you go on vacation, you could bring along one of those fancy digital SLR cameras for your sightseeing, capturing everything you see with megapixels of accuracy. That is, if you wanted to take pictures the easy way. Those looking for a real challenge could instead hire Stephen Wiltshire, who can draw extremely detailed landscapes completely from memory.

Wiltshire is autistic, which makes communication difficult for him, but also bestows him with his "living camera" ability. After just a 45-minute helicopter ride over Rome, he was able to create a stunningly accurate panoramic drawing of the cityscape — right down to the exact number of columns in the Coliseum — without so much as a glance at a photo. The project took him three days.

All kidding aside, it's not like Wiltshire's going to obsolete cameras, but his ability is a potent reminder that the potential of the human brain can still best any piece of technology out there. Check out some video (put together by the Germany-based Colorfield Productions) of Wiltshire drawing his 5-yard-long Roman panorama after the jump. — Peter Pachal