(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)ISRO chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair introduced “Bhuvan” at the Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) International Congress in Ahmedabad earlier this week. Bhuvan was created by ISRO’s Space Applications Center and is a satellite mapping tool similar to Google Earth.
As per Dr. G Madhavan
Bhuvan will use the data recorded by the Indian satellites only. The prototype of Bhuvan will be ready by the end of November and ISRO is hoping to officially launch the service by March next
True to Vikram Sarabhai’s vision, he added
With Bhuvan we will be able to produce very local information which will be specific to only to our own country. This information available from this mapping system will be useful in addressing very local problems like floods, famines, infrastructure development, education and much more
The best part is that Bhuvan will zoom upto 10 metres against a Goole Earth’s 200 metres view. Also, Bhuvan will be upgraded every year (it means you will have new maps every year) as against Google’s four year old mapping.
Bhuvan will also have multilayer information – this means you can get specific information based on filters. The entire imaging will be done using Indian satellites only and there will be options to view the information on different dates.
Though we won’t chart the world for now, I see this as yet another way we are slowly but steadily reaching out to the remote corners of our nation and it is even more wonderful to see this initiative coming from one of India’s finest Government programs.
PS: For those who would like to know a little trivia, Bhuvan means Earth. Also try out Wikimapia – it is another tool similar to Google Earth.
