BANGALORE, INDIA: India couldn't have asked for a better gift than ISRO's (India Space Research Organisation) 'Bhuvan', especially when its sixty-second birthday is just round the corner.

Neither could have ISRO sought for a better occasion for the launch of its much awaited and ambitious project, than on August 12, the 90th birth anniversary of Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian space programme.

‘Bhuvan’, which means earth in Sanskrit, is not just the Indian version of Google Earth and Wikimapia. The remote sensing 3D image portal something more than that – a strong answer to such mapping application websites. It is really a powerful tool as the Minister of State in the PMO Prithviraj Chavan called it.

This venture of ISRO is by all means a giant leap into satellite imagery of geographical regions, that too not so long after its successful space venture Chandrayaan -1. Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), a part of ISRO, has a lead role in designing and developing ‘Bhuvan’.

Bhuvan will allow users to have a closer look at any part of the subcontinent, barring sensitive locations such as military and nuclear installations. The site, among other things, offers tools to measure horizontal, vertical and aerial distances.

The content for Bhuvan has been developed using data provided by seven Indian remote sensing satellites including Resourcesat-1, Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2. Bhuvan will focus on rural and thematic applications like wasteland mapping, terrain profile and weather details.

Bhuvan will be able to produce very local information which will be specific to only to India. This information available from this mapping system will be useful in addressing very local problems like floods, famines, infrastructure development, education and much more


Down the lane it is all set to give Google Earth a tough ride. How? Here is the answer: 

Source: Wikipedia