Bhuvan: India's answer to Google Earth and Wikimapia

[Screaming Skull]

Bhuvan, Google Earth version to be launched by ISRO

Thursday, November 27, 2008, 7:55

Inspired by the success of its first mission to the Moon, the Chandrayaan-1, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is embarking on a project named Bhuvan (meaning, the Earth.)
Bhuvan, which has been described as the ISRO’s own version of Google Earth, will be launched by March 2009.

Bhuvan is expected to capture satellite images that are sharper than Google’s popular 3D mapping tool, Dr G Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, told the 28th International Congress on Collaborative Mapping and Space Technology of the Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) at Gandhinagar in Gujarat recently.

“Bhuvan,” Dr Madhavan Nair said, “will use the data recorded by the Indian satellites only. The prototype of Bhuvan will be ready by the end of November 2008.”

On the Bhuvan project, about which there is already a good amount of excitement, Madhavan Nair remarked, “This will not be a mere browser, but the mechanism for providing satellite images and thematic maps for developmental planning.”

To start with, Bhuvan has been designed to offer high-resolution satellite images only of India. The project, if successful, will start sending images for countries across the globe, which, like in the case of Google Earth, will be accessible free of cost online.

According to the ISRO, Bhuvan will let users zoom into geographical images to as small as 10 metres across. If Google Earth shows details down to 200-metre resolution on the surface and Wikimapia down to 50 metres, Bhuvan will have image resolution down to 10 metres – which means one can easily see details up to a three-floor-high building and also add information.

Reports say that if preliminary tests are successful, ISRO could even incorporate a GPS system into the tool.

In addition, since Google Earth’s images for India and South Asia are not as detailed as its North American and European counterparts, Bhuvan is expected to provide a very good alternative.

The ISRO, based in Bangalore, said, “Bhuvan will use a network of satellites to create a high-resolution, bird’s eye-view of India – and later, possibly, the rest of the world – that will be accessible at no cost online and will compete with Google Earth. If a pilot version passes muster, Bhuvan will be fully operational by the spring of 2009. There are also plans to incorporate a global positioning system (GPS) into the online tool.”

The data gathered by the Bhuvan project will be used for urban planning, traffic management and water and crop monitoring.

The ISRO intends to refresh its images every year, which, according to some technology analysts, would give Bhuvan an edge over its biggest rival, Google Earth, and help keep track of the hectic pace at which Indian cities are growing.

 

[Screaming Skull]

Update on Bhuvan

Wed, Mar 4 2009. 12:58 AM IST

Bangalore: There will soon be a local variant of Google Earth, the iconic and controversial service from Internet search company Google Inc. that allows ordinary people to take a close look at most parts of the world on their computer screens, using satellite images and maps.
The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) is planning to launch a similar Web-based service that will allow users to check everything from the exact location of the new restaurant where they have booked a table for the evening to the state of flood-ravaged villages in Bihar.

The new mapping service will be called Bhuvan, which is the Sanskrit word for earth. “The content generation is taking time. We are doing first (the) internal evaluation and then the (public) launch,” said V. Jayaraman, director of the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) an Isro unit in Hyderabad that specializes in satellite image processing and distribution. He did not specify a launch date. Earlier, in November, the space agency had set a March deadline for Bhuvan to be operational.



Bird’s-eye view: A satellite image by Cartosat-2 of Khairatabad and its surroundings in Hyderabad. Such satellites shoot images of objects as small as a car to build a three-dimensional map of the world.


The Indian space agency will use images taken at least a year ago by its seven remote-sensing satellites in orbit around the earth, including Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2. These satellites shoot images as small as a car on the street, to build a three-dimensional map of the world. Details such as roads and soil patterns on the maps would be available only for the Indian region, however.

Bhuvan, which uses high-resolution images, will comply with India’s remote sensing data policy, which does not allow online mapping services to show sensitive locations such as military and nuclear installations. High-resolution images are those that show locations of 1 sq. m or less on earth.
Even specialist users such as urban planners and internal security agencies need satellite images, as long as they are of recent vintage. Such content can be priced at a premium. Dated images are usually sold at a discount or offered free to researchers.

Google buys high-resolution imagery from service providers such as GeoEye Inc. for Google Earth, an application a user needs to download to a computer. He can then create his own content on the maps, either by hosting photos of homes or restaurants or by tagging them with geographical positioning system information.

Unlike Google Earth, the Bhuvan application will not be downloadable and will not allow users to host content in the near future. “We are not competing with Google,” said Jayaraman. A Google spokesperson declined to comment.
According to P. Nag, director of the National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation, a Kolkata-based mapping agency that uses remote-sensing data to build India’s atlas, the Bhuvan project demonstrates the country’s expertise in both information and space technology.
“Bhuvan is one project where high technology will benefit common people. In the current economic slowdown, if someone needs to analyze land for a project, the platform could be used and at no cost,” said Nag, a former surveyor general of India.
Analysts say that a combination of putting high-quality and high-resolution images online, and opening up the application programming interface (APIs) for users to use the database would help users to take full advantage of the new platform. APIs are a set of programming tools to build software applications.
“Even in a village, if you need to analyse crop patterns, the images should be of high quality. And there should be tools that come with it for people to analyse them,” said Rakesh Verma, managing director of CE Info Systems Pvt. Ltd, which runs the online portal mapmyindia.com
Others such as Suvret Kher, an independent geographical information system expert, advocate opening of APIs would help people to embed Bhuvan in their own customized applications and overlay their own data, making for a more effective use of the product. “That is one way to popularize the use of the imagery,” he said.
Jayaraman of NRSC said the Bhuvan project is being built in phases and it would get feedback from users before fine-tuning the product. “People can use the maps on Bhuvan and then embed information from Bhoo Sampada, a repository of land use and land cover data of the country and the national natural resources management system. That will happen,” said Jayaraman.

 

[Screaming Skull]

Guys I was just wondering if Bhuvan can provide such high resolution images of India, how difficult is it for it to map whole of Pakistan?

Seven remote sensing satellites including Cartosat 1 and 2 and Cartosat 3 to come are more than sufficient to spy on both Pakistan and China. Also with such high resolution it should be a cake walk for Indian war planners to track Pakistani and Chinese Nukes in addition to troop build up across the border or any terrorist movements.

Please let me know what you guys think....if successful this system will hugely aid in deploying a foolproof missile defense shield by aiding early detection of any nuclear or missile activity within the enemy territory

 

[rubyjackass]

Bhuvan: India's upcoming web map announced, misreported
Thursday, November 06, 2008 (23:44 UTC)

Bhuvan, which means Earth in Hindu Sanskrit, will be India's home-grown (3D?) web-based satellite imaging and mapping app when it goes live in March 2009, according to Indian media.

What it will do depends on how much faith you have in this media.

According to the Times of India it will let you "count the lions in Gir or fishermen find concentration of fish in the sea." The Times also has nonsensical stuff like:

If Google Earth shows details upto 200 metres distance and Wikimapia upto 50 metres, Bhuvan will show images upto 10 metres, which means you can easily see details upto a three floor high building and also add information.

That's ludicrous, of course, as it is the resolution of the camera that matters. Also, Wikimapia uses Google's imagery, but that's something that has been misreported before.

The Times also has what I sincerely hope is misquote by Indian Space Research Organisation chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair:

"[Bhuvan] will be able to give you an image from only 10 meters away", he said to the excited gathering.

More believably, imagery will be updated every year, and will be of the Indian sub-continent only. The Times also reports that you'll have the option of viewing imagery from different dates, which would indeed be a cool feature.

ExpressIndia reports, meanwhile, has what is very likely another misquote:

The ISRO Chairman said with this service they will have mapping of the entire earth, both in terms of the upper land surface and the exotic minerals down below.

That would be nice, if only it were likely to be true.

Joking aside, DNA India has a properly reported article. Salient points:

The data gathered through Bhuvan will be provided to different government agencies for urban planning, traffic management, crop planning, education and forest planning. The data will be available free to users, but very high resolution and customised precision data will be given to agencies at a cost, [ISRO Chairman] Madhavan added. “Integrated with application-specific Spatial Decision Support tools, the application will open up a new era of collaborative mapping in the country,” he said.

But I think this is unintentionally hilarious:

Technical Transfer Industrial Department head YP Rana said, “In scientific lingo, this is an oven-fresh concept, we are working on the details.

Quite possibly Rana was joking, and the reporter didn't get the joke.

If Bhuvan turns into a web mapping resource that manages to show satellite images of all of India at a constant, say, 2.5 meter resolution, that would certainly be a worthy addition to existing web tools, complementing Google Earth's 15m basemap with 1m DigitalGlobe imagery for urban areas. It will be especially interesting to find those parts of Bhuvan that are censored, as those are the ones we'll all have to go check out in Google Earth for Indian military secrets.

 

[rubyjackass]

India, here's why Google Earth is good for you
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 (22:55 UTC)

Reuters India writes about India's upcoming national satellite imagery mapping project Bhuvan: "India's own Google Earth causes security worries". It's an article that was just waiting to write itself. While it is competent enough, the experts interviewed — not so much:

But there are security concerns that Bhuvan could be misused because usage would be free.

"Giving satellite images to everyone will obviously have some kind of a security impact," said Ajai Sahni of New Delhi's Institute for Conflict Management.

"There is a possibility of misuse of such technology," Sahni said.

First, if there were to be a security impact, it would have happened when such imagery first became widely available for free, back in 2005 with the launch of Google Earth, and not now with Bhuvan. Barn door, horse, etc.

But a more important point is this: Before it became free the imagery was not secret, but merely expensive to purchase; it was accessible to those with the money and the motivation — such as, say, a terrorist organization, or a belligerent neighboring country.

The only new group of people Google Earth made high-resolution satellite imagery available to is the world's citizens, the ones who should be encouraged everywhere to make sure their governments and militaries are accountable to them. Starting such a participatory democratic institution would have been impossible without free images. Now that they are free, all the motivation needed is for everyone to want to see their neighborhood from space, because this way everything strange will eventually get noticed and discussed on blogs and forums and then in the mainstream media.

Meanwhile, another "expert" rehashes a very silly idea:

Security analyst Uday Bhaskar said there needs to be a global consensus on availability of such technology.

"There should be a global consensus on what is the kind of technology disseminated and what kind of firewall we need to erect for our own internal security," Bhaskar said.

India's government has in fact tried to get this idea implemented as new international law via the United Nations before, as blogged back in 2006. The main problem with Bhaskar's notion of a "consensus" is that it would in fact be a consensus of many countries whose governments are paranoid and/or undemocratic. If they had their way, Google Earth would just be a fuzzy blur. The radical transparency that Google Earth has brought us is a feature, not a bug, and it does not require interference from dubious new laws. Fortunately, this is obvious to all except Bhaskar and a few other muddled minds.

[Update: I forgot: In other news today: The Hindu writes: "Maharashtra wants Google Earth censored":

Mumbai (IANS): The Maharashtra government is examining legal options to censor Google Earth and curb it from showing sensitive locations to prevent terror attacks such as what happened in Mumbai, a minister said on Tuesday.

Yes, that was earlier today, sigh...]

 

[rubyjackass]

India, here's why Google Earth is good for you
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 (22:55 UTC)

Reuters India writes about India's upcoming national satellite imagery mapping project Bhuvan: "India's own Google Earth causes security worries". It's an article that was just waiting to write itself. While it is competent enough, the experts interviewed — not so much:

But there are security concerns that Bhuvan could be misused because usage would be free.

"Giving satellite images to everyone will obviously have some kind of a security impact," said Ajai Sahni of New Delhi's Institute for Conflict Management.

"There is a possibility of misuse of such technology," Sahni said.

First, if there were to be a security impact, it would have happened when such imagery first became widely available for free, back in 2005 with the launch of Google Earth, and not now with Bhuvan. Barn door, horse, etc.

But a more important point is this: Before it became free the imagery was not secret, but merely expensive to purchase; it was accessible to those with the money and the motivation — such as, say, a terrorist organization, or a belligerent neighboring country.

The only new group of people Google Earth made high-resolution satellite imagery available to is the world's citizens, the ones who should be encouraged everywhere to make sure their governments and militaries are accountable to them. Starting such a participatory democratic institution would have been impossible without free images. Now that they are free, all the motivation needed is for everyone to want to see their neighborhood from space, because this way everything strange will eventually get noticed and discussed on blogs and forums and then in the mainstream media.

Meanwhile, another "expert" rehashes a very silly idea:

Security analyst Uday Bhaskar said there needs to be a global consensus on availability of such technology.

"There should be a global consensus on what is the kind of technology disseminated and what kind of firewall we need to erect for our own internal security," Bhaskar said.

India's government has in fact tried to get this idea implemented as new international law via the United Nations before, as blogged back in 2006. The main problem with Bhaskar's notion of a "consensus" is that it would in fact be a consensus of many countries whose governments are paranoid and/or undemocratic. If they had their way, Google Earth would just be a fuzzy blur. The radical transparency that Google Earth has brought us is a feature, not a bug, and it does not require interference from dubious new laws. Fortunately, this is obvious to all except Bhaskar and a few other muddled minds.

[Update: I forgot: In other news today: The Hindu writes: "Maharashtra wants Google Earth censored":

Mumbai (IANS): The Maharashtra government is examining legal options to censor Google Earth and curb it from showing sensitive locations to prevent terror attacks such as what happened in Mumbai, a minister said on Tuesday.

Yes, that was earlier today, sigh...]

 

[Gulshan]

Work first, boast later. We Indian always boast first and do nothing.

 

[Screaming Skull]

Work first, boast later. We Indian always boast first and do nothing.

Hey that s not true...my sources in ISRO tell me that Bhuvan was well on track before Mumbai terror attacks happened...when it was revealed that the terrorists had used Google Earth extensively to plan the attacks GOI instructed ISRO to go slow....apparently there is going to be review by the GOI before ISRO can actually launch the project where the content related policies will be spelled out clearly.

Anyway BHUVAN is just a commercial product...the images from the seven remote sensing satellites are actually being provided to GOI by ISRO for spying and other strategic requirements.

 

[macintosh]

Hey that s not true...my sources in ISRO tell me that Bhuvan was well on track before Mumbai terror attacks happened...when it was revealed that the terrorists had used Google Earth extensively to plan the attacks GOI instructed ISRO to go slow....apparently there is going to be review by the GOI before ISRO can actually launch the project where the content related policies will be spelled out clearly.

Anyway BHUVAN is just a commercial product...the images from the seven remote sensing satellites are actually being provided to GOI by ISRO for spying and other strategic requirements.

If the images are being provided to goi then why would they tell ISRO to go slow???

 

[Screaming Skull]

If the images are being provided to goi then why would they tell ISRO to go slow???

Go slow with 'BHUVAN'...it is a commercial open access package just like Google Earth...the pics provided to GOI are confidential and meant for National Security....these involve pics of the border areas to monitor troop build up etc. Some argue that the resolution and coverage of the seven remote sensing satellites are enough for spying on Pakistan and China....these things will remain top secret and never come out in the open....even RAW's ariel surveillance wing uses pictures from these satellites

 

[Myth_buster_1]

Also with such high resolution it should be a cake walk for Indian war planners to track Pakistani and Chinese Nukes in addition to troop build up across the border or

now dont go soo deep in your sleep but in case of a war indian sat will be fried up from chinese land base laser system while it also has the capability to destroy any sat.

any terrorist movements.

terrorists dont carry a flag which says "hey i am a pakistani terrorists" nor they are visible until its too late. other vise US has 1000X more sat then india and they would have won WOT a long time ago.

 

[Patriot]

now dont go soo deep in your sleep but in case of a war indian sat will be fried up from chinese land base laser system while it also has the capability to destroy any sat.

Apparently, Chinese are dumb..Indians are real smart.They will be invading Shangai and Chinese will be sleeping according to Indian Trolls
but
in reality, if india dares to mess with China indian will be eating with chopsticks within few days of war

 

[PeacefulIndian]

Apparently, Chinese are dumb..Indians are real smart.They will be invading Shangai and Chinese will be sleeping according to Indian Trolls
but
in reality, if india dares to mess with China indian will be eating with chopsticks within few days of war

One of the most foolish posts I have ever read. Nobody is talking about a Indo-Chinese war here. The only thing thing that is being discussed is that Bhuvan MAY be used as an aiding tool for India's missile defence shield. And everybody knows Bhuvan is not there yet, it is still evolving.
Where is the question of Chinese being dumb, Indians being smart, India marching towards Shanghai?

 

[godsavetheworld]

terrorists dont carry a flag which says "hey i am a pakistani terrorists" nor they are visible until its too late. other vise US has 1000X more sat then india and they would have won WOT a long time ago.

Wrong. Indian security forces gaurding the LOC, have been granted acces to thermal imaging satellite, as well as equipped with hand-held thermal imaging cameras, to track even the slightest movement across the LOC. This is how New Delhi asserts that upto 40 training camps are still active in ***. And that is how BSF has been successful in reducing inflitration by over 90% in five years.

Bhuvan is made for more "commercial" reason. India will be coming up with a dedicated satellite for military purposes just like US has.

in reality, if india dares to mess with China indian will be eating with chopsticks within few days of war

PLease dont make such childish arguments. What does China have to do with India making a commercial venture?

 

[Myth_buster_1]

One of the most foolish posts I have ever read. Nobody is talking about a Indo-Chinese war here. The only thing thing that is being discussed is that Bhuvan MAY be used as an aiding tool for India's missile defence shield.

this is pretty much a normal knee jerk reaction to something shocking but true. you either dont know how to read and understand or you just randomly replied to a lone post without even knowing the context behind it.

Wrong. Indian security forces gaurding the LOC, have been granted acces to thermal imaging satellite, as well as equipped with hand-held thermal imaging cameras, to track even the slightest movement across the LOC. This is how New Delhi asserts that upto 40 training camps are still active in ***. And that is how BSF has been successful in reducing inflitration by over 90% in five years.

Bhuvan is made for more "commercial" reason. India will be coming up with a dedicated satellite for military purposes just like US has.

and so just cuz Indian media or the warmonger Indian military says so you are gonna open your hearts out and actually believe everything what they say? 40 training camps? are you sure they are not 400 stretched all across pakistan and not to forget "lahore" which apparently was in hit list by IAF few months ago.. its funny that these pathological liars claim such big stuff yet they show little or no prove and yet people like you actually fall for their false claims. its also funny that like you have claimed to stop or kill 90% of infiltration from pak and yet we see very little on the news and what ever it is its no more then 20-30 freedom fighters killed (most of them fake encounters while poor civilians playing the "ISI" trained terrorists role) and yet the biggest democracy needs 400,000 500,000 thousands troops to seal its borders from 20-30 fighters..
and also let me tell you that your Sat is gonna play lil or no role in busting terrorists when you have no human intelligence.