Center for Earth Systems Analysis Research

Department of Geography, San Diego State University

Facilities Laboratories

CESAR Lab

The Center for Earth Systems Analysis Research (CESAR) Lab (SH 328) is the computing hub of the department. In addition to high-end workstations, the CESAR complex houses the department server room consisting of numerous processing and storage devices linked to all department labs and offices through a Department of Geography administered LAN; a special projects room for student-accessible servers; a large work/equipment storage room; and the offices of the technical staff. A large format printer and scanner are also located here.


Richard D. Wright Spatial Analysis Lab

The Richard D. Wright Spatial Analysis Lab (SH 324) is the main teaching lab for the Department of Geography. The introductory and intermediate GIS, remote sensing and cartography lab sessions are conducted in this facility. Open lab time is utilized by students to finish assignments and also by the intro and intermediate spatial statistics classes.


William A. Finch Jr. Remote Sensing Lab

The laboratory is primarily utilized by students conducting research and/or working on laboratory exercises involving remote sensing and image processing. It is named after William Finch, a former SDSU Geography professor who was to teach remote sensing at SDSU. This laboratory primarily consists of 10 high-end workstation computers which have dual screens and enable display of three-dimensional images. It also houses a small collection of hard copy imagery and manual stereoscopic viewing equipment.


Qualitative Lab

The Qualitative Lab (SH 337) is used to analyze qualitative data collected by interviews and surveys.


Visualization Lab

The Visualization Lab (SH 339) is a graduate research area exploring new topics in Visualization.


Physical Lab

The Geography Physical Lab (SH 333) serves primarily as a teaching laboratory where eight divs (each containing 20 students) of a lower-division physical geography lab are conducted each semester. The physical geography lab contains a variety of apparatus and teaching aids essential for weekly completion of students' lab experiments. In addition, the lab is used to store hydrologic equipment and samples used by the Watershed Analysis group.