Bhuvan (satellite image service) by ISRO

What is Bhuvan?

Bhuvan is a satellite image service  like Google Earth, Bing Maps etc launched in India by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). It will include a number of specific features for India. It is a tool for online GIS services and uploading of output GIS products.

Bhuvan (means Earth in Sanskrit) is a Geoportal of ISRO, to evince the Indian Earth Observation capabilities from the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) series of satellites. It is an interactive versatile Earth-Browser which showcases multi-sensor, mutli-platform and multi temporal images with capabilities to overlay thematic information, interpreted from such imagery as a vector layer, along with near real-time information from Automatic Weather Stations (AWS), Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) information, disaster support related information like forest fire alerts, periodic agricultural drought assessment etc. The service is aimed at helping scientists, town planners and administrators.

Bhuvan by ISRO

Who developed Bhuvan tool?

It was developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a R&D Organisation under Government of India. The tool is aimed at providing much better and accurate data for India captured through the use of Indian satellites. It is a Geoportal with 152 tows GIS database which offers National level services.

Application sectors for of Bhuvan

Various collaborations have been done by different government sector for the use of tool. Some of the key sectors include

  • Agriculture
  • Forestry
  • E-governance
  • Water
  • Tourism
  • Urban
  • Rural

Basic features of Bhuvan:

  • 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 saving to an external file).
  • Measurement tools (Horizontal distance, aerial distance, vertical distance, and measure area).
  • Shadow Analysis (it sets the sun position based on the given time creating shadows and effects the lighting on the terrain).
  • Urban Design Tools (to build roads, junctions and traffic lights in an urban setting).
  • Contour map (Displays a colorized terrain map and contour lines).
  • Draw tools (Creates simples markers, free hand lines, urban designs).

More details about tool

Bhuvan has been designed to work properly in Indian scenario by tackling the problem of limitations on broadband and low internet speed at some areas. The data collected by Bhuvan under various projects sponsored by State will be made available to public administration of India to help them in better decision making and Urban Planning, traffic management and monitoring of agricultural produce and crops etc.

According to G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman of ISRO “This project is not just a browser , but the mechanism for providing images and maps for development planning”

However one of the problems which will be faced with Bhuvan will be the challenge of keeping the data up to continuous explosive growth and for number of cities. This tool is expected and claimed to be better and more accurate than Google Earth and other similar software for Indian context. It is expected to extend a great help in Master Plan and other development plan preparation in the country.

More details about Bhuvan Tool can be found out on the official website of this tool

Read about: Remote Sensing, Who uses GIS, Use of GIS application

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