ISRO Launches Bhuvan : India’s Very Own Google Earth
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman G Madhavan Nair unveiled “Bhuvan” at a function in Delhi today in the presence of Minister of State in the PMO Prithviraj Chavan.Bhuvan which means ‘earth’ in Sanskrit will allow users to navigate and zoom into any part of the world with restrictions and exceptions to sensitive and important places and discover virtual earth in 3D space with specific emphasis on Indian region.
Bhuvan uses images taken by ISRO‘s remote sensing satellites and builds a 3 Dimensional map of the world.Bhuvan allows you to zoom far closer than the aerial view from a chopper, and also fares better than other tools.
Bhuvan’s zoom capability is far superior than other tools like Google Earth and Wikimapia,Google Earth shows details upto 200 metres distance and Wikimapia upto 50 metres, Bhuvan will show images upto 10 metres.Most of the Indian terrain is covered upto at least six meters of resolution with the least spatial resolution being 55 meters.You can check the metadata content to determine when exactly a specific area was imaged aswell.
Bhuvan Features :
- Fly to location and fly to important places option
- Layers, 2D and 3D drawing, measurement tools, snapshot tools,etc
- Determine when exactly a specific area was imaged
- Bookmark locations using the draw tool to place an icon
Data Provided by Bhuvan :
- Satellite imagery (LISS III , LISS IV along with metadata and Multi- temporal Data from OCM & AWiFS)
- Value added information (NADAMS – National Agricultural Drought Monitoring System), Output of flood studies for certain areas,
- Thematic information (Wastelands, Soils, watershed,water resources related maps)
- Base layers ( administrative boundaries, transport layers, water bodies, etc)
- Census information
- Metadata
Google Earth and Bhuvan Feature Comparison Table :
| Feature | Google Earth | Bhuvan |
| Zoom | up to 200 mts | up to 10 mt |
| Layers | Single layer information | Multi-layer information |
| Viewing Options | No alternatives | Views Of Different Dates Avaialble |
| Satellites | Uses international satellites | Uses Indian satellites |
How to Use :
- Double right click to zoom in, and double left click to zoom out
- Mouse over the navigation compass gives an option to rotate and tilt.
Note : Bhuvan can run only on windows system and is optimized for IE 6. or higher and for ideal viewing a resolution of: 1280 x 1024.
System Requirements :
Access Bhuvan Online at : www.bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in
Download Bhuvan Plug-in.
