How can ‘Bhuvan’ beat ‘Lagaan’ of Google, Yahoo and Bing(MicroSoft) Maps.
ISRO launched ‘Bhuvan’ a map-based web application with deeper Zoom(upto 6 meters from surface) and plenty of other futuristic features such as complex poly-lines, geodesic calculations, 2D-3D images, shadow analysis, snapshot creation etc. Also, quite appropriately, ‘Bhuvan’ is more focused on the Indian landscape.
Though at the moment the web-app is far from being usable, the initiative calls for a wholesome congratulatory note from the pluGGd.in community. We really need such initiatives that boost the spirit of technology in our country and kindle the aura to ‘lead from the forefront’ . The discussion on our previous post ISRO Launches Bhuvan, Google Earth has a stiff competition is ample proof of this need.
But before our pride and happiness fall to ‘Bhuvan’, we better look at the current industry scenario in the maps-technology domain. Dominated largely by Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and Bing (Re-branded Microsoft) Maps there still seems an opening for ‘Bhuvan’ with plenty of work yet to be done in the map and map-based web applications space.
‘Bhuvan’ can be put to use for general benefit of public, particularly for rural India. In ways which one could fathom only by looking closely at how Indian polity, industry and other verticals interact with ordinary people. For example, in last Lok Sabha elections we saw Google and Yahoo covering the political jugglery on their interactive map interfaces. Logistics, Tourism and Travel is another industry where ‘Bhuvan’ can provide a meaningful boost. City-planning, disaster management, education and general social and business applications such as the wikimapia are few other remarkable uses of Bhuvan’s map-technology.
All depends on the Bhuvan’s strategy, however. Our belief is that ‘Bhuvan’ would be successful only when it opens up its API for crowd-sourced development. Only free development from open source community can lead platforms like ‘Bhuvan’ into a profitable (not just monetarily) and sustainable venture – an ecosystem that could finally benefit the general citizens. And if ISRO is reading this positively, their API also needs to be competitive and legally democratic (free) in order to compete with Google or Yahoo maps.
While for now, the Team Bhuvan must look at cross browser compatibility, application optimization, resolution, performance etc. the longer vision to allow people use the technology for open-source development must not be ignored to make the product worth Indian pride and appreciation.
According to us the task is unfinished, and needs close monitoring with the trends of technology and development across the world. What’s your take on this?
man they are fully immersed in Microsoft….look at IE compatibility, using DirectX from microsoft… I am sure they even know what open-source and API is all about…
nice post arvind. I will soon switch to bhuvan maps for analytics in my website once it is launched. can u throw some more light on as when we can use the technology
I guess it’d be quite sometime from now…even the buggy launch has been after a delay of 3-4 months.
Bhuvan could be used for all the purposes you mentioned (disaster management, city planning, etc) without having to be a commercial product. I agree that making it available as open source, would drive innovation. However, I don’t think it has to compete against Google and Yahoo to be useful to development of India.
@khd? What sort of product then should it be?? A non-competing dud, which many other applications try to be??? Without competition no app/product/business will attract open-source developers nor users in a capitalist world…It’s completely loser like if one is not ready to compete with giants of the space… or at least not carving a niche for oneself to take on the giants…
I have a Linux box, and so I was unable to check bhuvan into action. I then switched to a friends windows machine to see how it looks like.
Bhuvan’s interface is awesome with lots of unexpected features like 2d/3d maps, add layers, points, lines and polygons, etc.
Bhuvan’s success over Google earth maps is in the terms of accuracy of data. I checked major areas, roads of Mumbai and Delhi, and compared them with Google. Data with Bhuvan is much updated and are pretty correct as compared to Google. I checked ‘Bandra worli searlink’ and found that Bhuvan’s image is much correct than the Google earth maps.
Bhuvan’s team has done a superb job. I am looking forward to see the capabilities of their developers platform and rich API support.
Congratulations !!
Now that’s a kick-ass feedback @Ritesh
i am not able to download bhuvan for after trying the same from the site : http://isrobhuvan.in/ for a long long hrs. every time i try it gives page load error
can u pl. give me the links, all the working ones, you have gone thru, one by one , step by step.
the net says many are not able to download the same or after downloading all three required softwares nothing did work for them. every one expressing its all due to initial hiccups.
but how did it work for u ???????
pl. help
Limitations like buggy IE and directX are there. But, then also, I feel they have done good work as expected from a Government Organization
I think this initiative is getting too much media attention and will result in disappointment. I am familiar with most of GIS and image processing software used in the remote sensing domain, and I’ll post my opinions here:
1) ISRO may be a great space research organization, but that doesn’t make them great software developers. Software development is a different ball game altogether.
2) Instead of making full-blown software which hardly anyone will end up using, it would have been better if they could enhance the existing software in the market with plugins and make the higher resolution maps available to these software. For a research organization like ISRO, making a software product to compete with the likes of Google Earth and maintaining it is far tougher, and most existing software provide capabilities for adding plugins.
Why reinvent the wheel?
I don’t intend to sound harsh, but I always believe in execution being more important than the idea and intention.
@Aditya … No doubt that execution & performance is more important than the idea and intention. And ‘bhuvan’ team truly needs to rub its ass off to get even close to its competition. Mark my words, only competition can make them get close to making their product worthwhile and not by distancing themselves from other map-apps…:)
Regarding re-inventing the wheel. Well there are some serious limitations of the existing technologies available worldwide. Besides ISRO team owns the satellites behind ‘bhuvan’, which gives them a significant edge over ‘refresh’ and ‘control’ part of future development and upgrades.
So not all is in vain, as you see Aditya.