India has launched a rival to Google Earth, the search Engine’s hugely popular satellite imagery service. Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) unveiled its beta version of Bhuvan (meaning earth in Sanskrit).

A web based tool like Google earth, Bhuvan promises to give better 3-D satellite imagery of India than is currently being offered by the US-based software giant plus a host of India-specific feature like weather information and even administrative boundaries of all states and districts.

This tool would provide images and navigate support just like Google Earth but currently has the best resolutions over Indian Sub-continent. It also provides tools for measuring, drawing, saving, printing and visualizing thematic information.

The application can be downloaded from http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in

Bhavan currently only offers images taken between one and three years ago even over India. It combines satellite imagery from various sensors onboard IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) satellites and transposes them on a 3-D globe. Bhuvan eventually promises to offer real time data and images.

Keeping in mind that its users will be mostly in India to begin with, Bhuvan is designed to be as “bandwidth-friendly” as possible and can run even on slow internet connections.

For complete details about the tools and the project Visit : http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in