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Bhuvan : Indian Earth mapping service to beat Google Earth

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Bhuvan
May be you think above title is some what exaggerated, but I can say that now Google got a tough competitor, that too from Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which unveiled its beta version of Bhuvan.

‘Bhuvan’, which means earth in Sanskrit, a satellite mapping tool based on the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) technology is similar to Google Earth and Wikimapia.

‘Bhuvan’ a web-based tool which is currently in beta stage,promises to give better 3-D satellite imagery of India than Google Earth along with other India-specific features like weather information and even administrative boundaries of all states and districts.

Bhuvan Features

  • Visualise 2D and 3D image data along with rich thematic information on Soil, wasteland, water resources etc.
  • 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)
  • 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)


Key Differences between Google earth and Bhuvan:

Bhuvan:

  • Zoom levels up to 10 mt
  • Multi-layer information
  • Images upgraded every year
  • Options of viewing on different dates
  • Uses Indian satellites

    • Google Earth

  • Zoom levels up to 200 mt
  • Single layer information
  • Images upgraded every 4 years
  • No alternate viewing options
  • Google buys high-resolution imagery from service providers such as GeoEye

    • Yes we are proud of India and ISRO for providing a Home made satellite mapping tool,whose main focus only on the Indian sub-continent. But ISRO members deny any sort of a competition intent with Google Earth.

    But here are some Con’s :

  • Bhuvan runs good in IE 6+: what about firefox or other Browsers ?
  • Site took 1.5 minutes to load
  • site is Frequently displaying “Site heavily loaded with users ” message
  • Bhuvan does not allows users to host content
  • Flash based website

    • yeah i know ISRO is not cutting edge expert in PC technology like Google,but while building important project they should adhere latest technology, I’m not criticizing the project this is just a suggestion.

    How to get  Bhuvan ?

    Link: http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/
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    source

    3. its damn getting connected, i have’t seen one image or even loged in after registering myself with bhuvan web link. It is as usual indian government stunt show.