Bhuvan- A Geoportal of Indian Space Research Organisation showcasing Indian
Imaging Capabilities in Multi-sensor, Multi-platform and Multi-temporal
domain. The portal gives a gateway to explore and discover virtual
earth in 3D space with specific emphasis on Indian region.
About BHUVAN - Bhuvan gives you an easy way to experience, explore and visualize IRS images over Indian region
ISRO is well known amongst space faring nations for its world-leading
reputation in developing new, indigenous and innovative service
oriented applications using remote sensing technology. Over the past 2
decades, ISRO has mastered the art of developing these unique
applications using various spectral, spatial and temporal resolutions
offered by the versatile IRS satellites and these have been
successfully institutionalized in many important areas of policy
making, natural resources management, disaster support, and enhancing
the quality of life across all sections of the society.
Bhuvan is an initiative to showcase this distinctiveness of Indian
imaging capabilities including the thematic information derived from
such imagery which could be of vital importance to common man with a
focus on Indian region. Bhuvan, an ambitious project of ISRO
to take Indian images and thematic information in multiple spatial
resolutions to people through a web portal through easy access to
information on basic natural resources in the geospatial domain.
Bhuvan showcases Indian images by the
superimposition of these IRS satellite imageries on 3D globe.
It displays satellite images of varying resolution of India’s
surface, allowing users to visually see things like cities and
important places of interest looking perpendicularly down or at an
oblique angle, with different perspectives and can navigate through 3D
viewing environment. The degree of resolution showcased is based on the
points of interest and popularity, but most of the Indian terrain is
covered upto at least 5.8 meters of resolution with the least spatial
resolution being 55 meters from AWifs Sensor. With such rich content,
Bhuvan opens the door to graphic visualisation of digital geospatial
India allowing individuals to experience the fully interactive terrain
viewing capabilities.
Multi-resolution images from multi-sensor IRS satellites of India is
seamlessly depicted through the Bhuvan web portal by enabling a common
man to zoom into specific area of interest at high resolution. Bhuvan
brings a whole lot of uniqueness in understanding our own natural
resources whilst presenting beautiful images and thematic vectors
generated from varieties of geospatial information. Bhuvan will also
attempt to bring out the importance of multi-temporal data and to
highlight the changes taking place to our natural resources, which will
serve as a general awareness on our changing planet. There
are lot more special value added services which will be enabled onto
the web portal in due course of time and each one of those services are
going to be unique to preserving and conserving our precious natural
resources through public participation. We are sure the
common man will get rich benefits from these Indian geospatial data
services in days to come.
Bhuvan FAQWhat is Bhuvan?Bhuvan is a geoportal that provides medium to high resolution satellite
imagery of virtually the entire India over the internet. You can "fly"
around using mouse and keyboard on a simple desktop computer with
virtual globe in front draped with IRS images over Indian region. Many
other features are built in, including 3D terrain and information on
many thematic data.
What can Bhuvan do for me?Bhuvan is a free web based image portal. Most Image visualization
programs are very expensive and complex. Bhuvan provides a fast and
friendly way to look at IRS satellite data and thematic information in
geographic context, which is invaluable for management, planning and
visualization. Additionally, Bhuvan makes it easy to share digital data
between people and computers anytime, anywhere. Over a period
of time a lot more unique functionalities will be added into this tool
to address common man’s problems, particularly in the rural
setup of India and addressing natural resources management issues.
What do I require to run Bhuvan on my Machine?You require the Bhuvan Plug-in which can be downloaded from the Bhuvan
website after registration and you will also need DirectX9 or higher
version (www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/) for installing the
plug-in. Please note that the Bhuvan Plug-in can be installed with
administrative privileges only.
How do I use Bhuvan?When you first open Bhuvan website, You will land on the index page
which gives you information on Bhuvan and this page also allows you to
register for using the Bhuvan. Once you successfully register, you will
land on the Bhuvan 3D client page. Here, there are three primary areas
of the program that you'll be using. The main window shows a globe, and
you can navigate around with your mouse or use the Heads-Up Display
(HUD) option available on the right top corner. Double right click to
zoom in, and double left click to zoom out (or use your mousewheel).
Right click, hold, and drag to pan. The second area is at the upper
right of the main window. When you move your mouse over the navigation
compass, it give you more movement options such as rotate and tilt
(which you can also do with your mouse). The third area is to the left
of the main window. This frame includes a fly to location and fly to
important places option. On the top of the globe are the menu options
for layers, 2D and 3D drawing, measurement tools, snapshot tools etc.
When you select any of these options, you see the context options on
the left plane where you can make appropriate choices that you can turn
on to make visible in the main windows such as roads, 3D terrain, and
more.
Can I use Bhuvan if I don't have a fast internet connection?Yes. Bhuvan is designed to be as bandwidth-friendly as possible.
However, it is dependent on continuously downloading a large amount of
imagery. Consequently, the faster your connection, the better the
program will perform. If you have a slow connection, Bhuvan will
download imagery correspondingly slowly, but it will (eventually)
download everything at the maximum available resolution.
Depending on the number of concurrent users on over servers and the
kind of bandwidth at client end the ultimate speed of visualisation
will be decided. This is a beta release, however with more
learnings we will be able to make things more comfortable for all types
of users.
Can I use Bhuvan if I'm not connected to the internet?No. You will have to be connected to Internet for using Bhuvan.
How current is the imagery in Bhuvan?Bhuvan portal does NOT display data in real-time. The images you see
are a combination of satellite imagery from various IRS sensors taken
(generally) sometime within the last three years during different
seasons. Bhuvan, on release, contains IRS satellite images from OCM,
AWifs, LISS 3, and LISS 4 sensor images and will be added with more
data from time to time. Bhuvan is constantly updating its database to
use more recent and higher resolution images. You can explore the
metadata content to determine when exactly a specific area was imaged,
but you may be able to use landmarks to generalize a date range if you
are familiar with the area.
How do I bookmark a place in Bhuvan?Zoom to the location that you'd like to bookmark (placemark, more
accurately), use the draw tool to place an icon. After you
save the placemark, it will stay in the frame to the left of the main
window, and double clicking on it will zoom you to that position.
Can I add my own data into Bhuvan?No. In the current version, you will not be able to add your own data
Do I have to register to use Bhuvan?Yes. It is mandatory to register to use Bhuvan.
How much does Bhuvan cost?The basic version of Bhuvan is free. Once you register and you login,
you will be asked to download the Bhuvan plug-in. Accept the
installation of the plug-in and you are ready to use the full features
of Bhuvan.
Can I run Bhuvan on Mac OS and Linux?No at the moment Bhuvan can run only on windows system and is optimised for IE 6. or higher
What type of data can I see in Bhuvan?You will be able to see the following data on Bhuvan
* Satellite imagery (LISS III , LISS IV
along with metadata and Multi- temporal Data from OCM
& AWiFS)
* Value added information (NADAMS
– National Agricultural Drought Monitoring System), Output of
flood studies for certain areas,
* Thematic information (Wastelands, Soils, watershed,water resources related maps)
* Base layers ( administrative boundaries, transport layers, water bodies, etc)
* Census information
* Metadata
What do I do when I get the ‘’DD_ERR Video Ram Memory’’ error?Close all other applications and relaunch Bhuvan.
System Requirements for Using Bhuvan
Requirements for Windows* Operating System: Windows XP/Vista
* CPU: Pentium 4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+
* System Memory (RAM): 512MB
* Hard Disk: 2GB free space
* Network Speed: 768 Kbits/sec
* Graphics Card: 3D-capable with 32MB of VRAM
* Screen: 1280x1024, "32-bit True Color"
DirectX 9.0 or higher version
MS .NET framework 2.0 or above
Please note that the Bhuvan Plug-in can be installed with administrative privileges only.
Bhuvan Plug-in can be downloaded from this link, after registration.
After installing the plugin,
Open Internet Explorer (Yes, currently working with IE only) and
Go to Login Page:http://bhuvan2.nrsc.gov.in/Bhuvan/WebClient/PresentationLayer/WebClient/index.aspx
Once you successfully login, you will land on the Bhuvan 3D client page!
