Institute for Geographic Information Science

As a member campus in the CSU GIS Specialty Center, SFSU participates in license agreements with Environmental System Research Institute (ESRI), Inc., for GIS software, and with ERDAS Inc. for remote sensing and image processing software. The agreements cover a variety of GIS software packages for teaching, research and administrative uses. Below is a summary of the benefits for the SFSU faculty and staff.

Software: There are various numbers of seats for different software products available on campus. In principle, the SFSU faculty and staff has free access to the listed software products, assume the uses of the software are for non-for-profit uses including: teaching, research and university administration. The license will not, however, cover a project that will generate profits. Users may need to purchase hardware keys for some software packages. For a complete list of products available under the university site license program click here.
Technical support: Questions related to technical issues in operating or installing software products should be directed to the campus technical representative or the site license contact. In some cases, the campus technical representative may assist in the installation and the setup.

Please contact Anne McTavish, the SFSU Site License Administrator, or Seth Hiatt, Associate Director of the IGISc, for detailed information.

Overview of Available Software Products

Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. has been creating GIS software for over 30 years. Recognized as the leader in GIS software, it's been estimated that about seventy percent of GIS users use ESRI products. ArcGIS, ESRI's newest offering of GIS software, is an integrated collection of GIS software products for building a complete GIS. The main families of ArcGIS available from ESRI are: Desktop GIS, Server GIS, and Embedded GIS. ArcGIS Desktop software products allow you to author, analyze, map, manage, share, and publish geographic information and include ArcReader, ArcView (3.x - 9.x), ArcEditor, ArcInfo, and ArcGIS extensions. ArcView is a full-featured GIS software for visualizing, managing, creating, and analyzing geographic data. ArcInfo is the most complete and extensible GIS available. Optional extensions for ArcGIS Desktop products allows you to perform extended tasks such as raster geoprocessing and 3-D analysis. Server GIS products allow GIS functionality and data to be deployed from a central environment and include ArcIMS, ArcGIS Server, and ArcSDE. Embedded GIS, or ArcGIS Engine, is a developer product for creating custom GIS desktop applications.

Leica Geosystems GIS & Mapping offers one of the best solutions in the industry across all links in the Geospatial Imaging Chain, e.g. geographic imaging solutions designed to capture, reference, measure, analyze and present data in a format that is useful to geospatial information professionals. Leica Geosystems GIS & Mapping, is the leading producer of an imagery software suite designed specifically for image processing. The package is easy-to-learn, easy-to-use and its comprehensive collection of tools helps create accurate base imagery that enhances other GIS applications. The two main software products available from Leica Geosystems GIS & Mapping are ERDAS Imagine and the Leica Photogrammetry Suite (LPS). ERDAS Imagine is a broad collection of software tools designed specifically to process imagery. LPS is a collection of seamlessly integrated software tools providing accurate and production oriented photogrammetric tools for a broad range of geospatial imaging applications.