ISRO has launched their own edition of a mapping application similar to Google Earth. Bhuvan, which is a sanskrit word, mean Earth.
ISRO Bhuvan was launched on the occasion of 90th birth anniversary of Vikram Sarabhai who is considered to be the father of Indian space program. National Remote Sensing Agency played an important role in the creation of this product.
They used data provided by satellites including Resourcesat-1 to get the best possible imagery for India.
ISRO claims that the application can provide imagery of up to 10 metres for major Indian cities compared to 200 meters provided by Google Earth.
What is ISRO Bhuvan?
ISRO’s Bhuvan (which means Earth) is a satellite mapping tool similar to Google Earth and Wikimapia. It was developed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It offers resolution up to 10 metres and is considered as a rival to Google Earth and Wikimapia.
Tata Consultancy Services has a 3 crore deal with ISRO to make advanced moon map which is taken by Chandrayaan. An official said this software will be a freeware and it needs a license for usage to check if the users are Indian nationals. This will provide better resolution compared to existing mapping solutions. Bhuvan will feature a zoom level of up to 10 meters while the Google Earth features a zoom level of up to 200 meters. ISRO has also decided to make a tracking and mapping antenna(30×15)m the largest in India in Chennai for advanced 3D mapping and resources.
Basic features of ISRO’s Bhuvan
Here are some of the features of Bhuvan, the Satellite Mapping Tool launched by ISRO on August 12th, 2009
- Access, explore and visualise 2D and 3D image data along with rich thematic information on Soil, wasteland, water resources etc.
- Visualise multi-resolution, multi-sensor, multi-temporal image data
- Superpose administrative boundaries of choice on images as required
- Visualisation of AWS ( Automatic Weather Stations) data/information in a graphic view and use tabular weather data of user choice
- Fly to locations ( Flies from the current location directly to the selected location)
- Heads-Up Display ( HUD) naviation controls ( Tilt slider, north indicator, opacity, compass ring, zoom slider)
- Navigation using the 3D view Pop-up menu (Fly-in, Fly out, jump in, jump around, view point)
- 3D Fly through (3D view to fly to locations, objects in the terrain, and navigate freely using the mouse or keyboard)
- Drawing 2D objects (Text labels, polylines, polygons, rectangles, 2D arrows, circles, ellipse)
- Drawing 3D Objects (placing of expressive 3D models, 3D polygons, boxes)
- Snapshot creation (copies the 3D view to a floating window and allows to save to a external file)
- Measurement tools (Horizontal distance, aerial distance, vertical distance, measure area)
- Shadow Analysis (it sets the sun position based on the given time creating shadows and effects the lighting on the terrain)
- There would be many more value added functions and facilities which will be added into the package from time to time.
- Particular interest of ISRO/DOS would be to provide such functionalities to common man so that he/she adopts participatory approach with scientists to solve simple problems easily and interactively.
ISRO Bhuvan Vs Google Earth – A Comparision
Google Earth Vs ISRO Bhuvan
Google Earth
* Zoom levels up to 200 mt
* Single layer information
* Images upgraded every 4 years
* No alternate viewing options
* Uses international satellites
ISRO Bhuvan
* Zoom levels up to 10 mt
* Multi-layer information
* Images upgraded every year
* Options of viewing on different dates
* Uses Indian satellites
Minimum System Requirements:
- Operating System: Windows XP/Vista;CPU: Pentium 4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+ ;System Memory (RAM): 512MB ; Hard Disk: 2GB free space ;Network Speed: 768 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.
How to Download & Install ISRO Bhuvan?
>> BHUVAN QUICK DOWNLOAD LINK (Click to download Bhuvan Plugin) <<
In order to download Bhuvan Software you have to first register with Bhuvan Website. Click Here to go to Bhuvan’s Official Web site and register there.
Then you will directed to a page from where you can download the Bhuvan plugin from here (its actually Skyline’s terraexplorer plugin) and Microsoft’s DirectX.
In order to install the plugin, you need to have the administrator privilege in your machine. The product works only in IE and is quite buggy to start with.
