I am very new to android programming, and I want to create a large infinite scrolling and zoomable activity where I can add views much like the empty activity we get in the Simple Mind app. Which layout and activity type should I use? What we the best way to implement this? Any help or pointers to tutorials are welcome.
No view in Android is infinite, you're going to run out of memory at some point. The solution you choose will depend on how interactive you need the zoomed view to be.
You can check out android pinch zoom for previous discussions on this topic.
If you're just looking at displaying information and not editing then I'd suggest custom tile maps for google maps.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android/tileoverlay
I've seen it used before for very high resolution viewing of paintings.