@twoblue: some of the components can be had off-the-shelf from 8020, SDP-SI, and Grainger, whereas other parts are custom built by us. The DollyShield will be sold as part of a larger package to timelapse shooters via DynamicPerception.com come September. If you look at the first video in that series, Jay talks quite a bit about pricing (less than $800 for everything).
@Funky diver: I'm not sure I get your drift, are you saying you don't like timelapse video, and want me to encourage you to like it, or you're not familiar with timelapse video? I'm not equipped (nor terribly interested =) in performing the former, but there's a lot of info to help with the latter...
The whole purpose of taking pictures like this is to create videos (one frame at a time!) showing the passing of time, often to great artistic effect.
Of course, timelapse isn't the only thing that utilizes this same technology, but to open up the doors on photographic motion control would take a lot more chars than I have here =) Try http://timescapes.org - look around on the forum there, there are hundreds of people uploading their videos, maybe something will catch your fancy, or not.
!c