National Institute Design flies high with Geo-visulalization projects

Indian National Institute of Design is stepping into rarefied fields. The institute may set up a task group if it gets a nod from the Union Ministry of Science and Technology for its two-year mission to evolve a design-oriented geo-visualisation technology.

 

Geo-visualisation, a technology that was so far restricted to niche areas like defence and earth observation, can help solve wider issues like that of food and water in India, using design as the bedrock.

 

Geographic visualisation (geo-visualisation) is the use of visual tools like cartography or GIS to understand phenomena on the earth’s surface.

 

“Used only in areas such as defence in India for the last 25 years, it was now decided to make the technology more comprehensible, and put to a wider use,” said MP Ranjan, NID senior faculty, who was appointed chairman of the fivemember task group last month.

 

A national strategy document, which will be readied in a month from now by the task group, will identify areas of research and development in geo-visualisation in the Indian context and its benefits to academia, governance and industry.

 

The task group headed by Ranjan comprises four other members, including those from ISI, Kolkata, University of Hyderabad, Microsoft Research India and Natural Resources Data Management System (NRDMS) of GoI’s department of science and technology.

 

Illustrating water-shed management as an important beneficiary of the project, Dr Debapriya Dutta, additional director of NRDMS, New Delhi, and member secretary of the task group told TOI, “The real stakeholders in watershed mangement have been bereft of the benefit of geo-visualisation, because they do not understand the technology.”

 

(Credits Times of India)