Google Earth’s Desi rival ‘Bhuvan’ hits Web

ISROIndian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has introduced a Desi version of Google Earth, an application to take virtual tour of any location of the world trough high resolution images.

The new utility, dubbed as 'Bhuvan', has features similar to those of Google Earth; and displays pictures taken by ISRO's seven remote sensing satellites, including Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2; and is capable of capturing pictures of objects as small as a car on a road.

The mapping application provides aerial view of geographical regions, avoiding displaying the images of military, nuclear establishments and other sensitive and strategically important sites. The 3D web tool provides images with 10 meter resolution based on degree of popularity. Users can view cities and towns at different angles with different perspectives, and find information related to major towns and cities of India.

ISRO Chairman, G Madhavan added, "With Bhuvan, we will be able to produce very local information which will be specific to only 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."