Bhuvan: ISRO’s answer to Google Earth
In what appears to be a challenge to Google Earth and Wikimapia, the Space Applications Centre (SAC) of ISRO has come up with ‘Bhuvan’, bringing India’s name into the limelight yet again. Bhuvan, which literally means ‘earth’, is a web-based tool like Google Earth, but it promises better 3-D satellite imagery of India than what is currently being offered by other Virtual Globe software. Moreover, it brings you a host of India-specific features such as weather information and even administrative boundaries of all states and districts.
Bhuvan is equally capable of offering images of the globe, but the best resolution area is India, at least for the time being. “Bhuvan will be able to give you an image from only 10 meters away”, an ISRO spokesman said; which means in the Indian subcontinent even a commuter moving on the road can be easily spotted. Bhuvan uses images taken at least a year ago by ISRO’s seven remote-sensing satellites in orbit including Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2.
Unique features
1. Bhuvan allows users to access, explore and visualize 2D and 3D image data along with rich thematic information on soil, wasteland, water resources etc in the Indian subcontinent.
2. It displays multi-resolution, multi-sensor, multi-temporal image data.
3. Users can superpose administrative boundaries of choice on images as required.
4. It allows visualization of AWS (Automatic Weather Stations) data in a graphic view and use tabular weather data of user choice.
5. Fly to locations (Enables users to fly from the current location directly to the selected location)
6. It features a Heads-Up Display (HUD) navigation controls (Tilt slider, north indicator, opacity, compass ring, zoom slider)
7. Allows navigation using the 3D view Pop-up menu (Fly-in, Fly out, jump in, jump around, view point)
8. 3D Fly through (3D view to fly to locations, objects in the terrain, and navigate freely using the mouse or keyboard)
9. Drawing 2D objects (Text labels, polylines, polygons, rectangles, 2D arrows, circles, ellipse)
10. Drawing 3D Objects (placing of expressive 3D models, 3D polygons, boxes)
11. Snapshot creation (copies the 3D view to a floating window and allows saving to an external file)
12. Measurement tools (Horizontal distance, aerial distance, vertical distance, measure area)
13. Shadow Analysis (it sets the sun position based on the given time creating shadows and effects of the lighting on the terrain)
14. The Bhuvan portal is designed to run on slow Internet connections.
Bhuvan’s edge over Google Earth:
Thus, Bhuvan represents, in essence, the whole India on your computer. The next version of Bhuvan is expected to be called Bhuvan ChandraBhumi, which will feature both earth and moon in resolution up to 347 m maximum in near side and 432 m far side which is taken by Chandrayaan. The Bhuvan project demonstrates the country’s expertise in both information and space technology.
The Bhuvan can be downloaded from >> http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/
Minimum System Requirements:
- Operating System: Windows XP/Vista; RAM: 512MB; Hard Disk: 2GB free space; Network Speed: 256 Kbits/sec; Graphics Card: 3D-capable with 32MB of VRAM; Screen: 1280×1024, 32-bit True Color;
- To browse Bhuvan, you require the Bhuvan Plug-in which can be downloaded from this website, after registration and you will also need DirectX 9.0 or higher version (www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/) and MS .NET framework 2.0 or above for installing the plug-in. Please note that the Bhuvan Plug-in can be installed with administrative privileges only.
- For details Click FAQ
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I liked it. So much useful material. I read with great interest.
Interesting and informative. But will you write about this one more?
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[...] made by the company's tainted founder Ramalinga Raju through pledging of shares, says the CBI. …Bhuvan: ISRO's answer to Google Earth | Satya Thakur's BlogIn what appears to be a challenge to Google Earth and Wikimapia, the Space Applications Centre (SAC) [...]
Satyathakur…
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It will be interesting to see how successful Bhuvan will be, I wouldn’t mind giving it a go to see how it compares.
I can see why India would release something like Bhuvan, especially if it can give better images of the country than Google Earth. I think more countries should have their own if it means more focused images and better resolutions. Will be interesting to see what Bhuvan’s capabilities are and how many more of the same equivalents are released.
through pledging of shares, says the CBI. …Bhuvan: ISRO’s answer to Google Earth | Satya Thakur’s BlogIn what appears to be a challenge to Google Earth and Wikimapia
I was reading about this the other day and it sounds really good. The fact that it has a better resolution and some great features specific to India mean that it would be ideal for other countries too, rather than being there for the whole world as one unit.
The images on Google Earth are really old now. I split with my husband 2 and a half years ago but on Google Earth my car is still on his drive.
I hadn’t heard of this before, it looks really good. Hopefully there will be one developed for all the other countries as well, because it would be good to see the kind of imagery that will be experienced with Bhuvan.
The whole class can become involved in this experiment by assigning one temperature of water to each team of students. The students can then compare their results and work together to analyze your data.
It brings you a host of India-specific features such as weather information and even administrative boundaries of all states and districts. Interesting and informative.
There is something else better than google map or earth? That’s crazy.
Leslie
It’s amazing the technology that goes into these 3D map sites…and it just keeps getting better!!
-Taylor
I’ve seen this somewhere before. It looks really good and hopefully with further advancements in technology there will be more of these for each country and you’ll be able to use it more specifically.
I liked it. So much useful material. I read with great interest.
It looks good, hopefully it can be developed until it’s much better to use than google earth and then other countries can have something similar that has a much better focus as it’s not trying to service the whole world.
Thanks for sharing. I respect your works. Nice blog…
This is awesome. Google Earth doesn’t have very good images of India, so this is needed. Does Bhuvan have good images of America?
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