Jas Business Blog

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)’s satellites have been making news all over world for their remote sensing capabilities. Come March 2009, ISRO will launch its own IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) image portal called Bhuvan. This was announced by ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair while delivering a lecture on “Benefits of Space to the Society,” organised at an inaugural function in Gandhinagar on Tuesday.

The portal will offer detailed satellite views of our subcontinent to users – akin to those seen on Google Earth and Wikimapia, but with a difference; this one will give sharper and more detailed pictures than provided by Google. Google Earth, which can zoom up to 200m, will have good competition in Bhuvan, which has a sharper zoom level capability of up to 10m.

While Google Earth provides single-layer information, Bhuvan would provide multi-layer information. Additionally, you would be able to view the images date-wise. The entire service makes use of Indian satellites and its focus will be the Indian subcontinent. ISRO plans to use it to enhance urban and forest planning and traffic management. Like Google Earth, a “special” version would be in the offing for professional and corporate users who might need higher resolution data. Of course, this would come at a price, though the base version would remain free. Apart from Bhuvan, ISRO is also readying an information portal called “Bhu Sampada.” Both services are expected to be operational by March 2009.

Nair said that upon being integrated with application-specific Spatial Decision Support (SDS) tools, these two unique portals would open up a new era of collaborative mapping in the country. “These are not mere image or information browsers, but are the mechanisms for providing satellite images and thematic maps to the user community for the purpose of development planning,” he said.