How the California Memorial Stadium seat and sun data is measured

Every number comes from a USGS lidar survey of the stadium, NOAA solar equations, the official stadium map and published row lists. Nothing is estimated from photos.

Sources

Stadium shape: USGS 3D Elevation Program lidar, Alameda County collection, flown 3 July 2021, 1 tile. First-return points gridded to 1 m, noise removed.
Section directions: the section order round the bowl from a rateyourseats.com seating chart, lined up with the field in the lidar and checked against the calbears.com 2026 stadium map.
Row lists and the visiting fans' sections: rateyourseats.com section notes; rows a section does not sell keep their place on the rake.
The Cal and visitor benches, students and the band: the calbears.com 2026 stadium map. Gates, bag rules, re-entry, alcohol, parking, transit and tailgating: calbears.com. Capacity and opening year: Wikipedia.
Sun: NOAA solar position equations. Weather: ERA5 reanalysis and forecasts via Open-Meteo.

How shade is computed

Each section is sampled on 3 lines (left, centre, right) at every row, 10074 seat points in total. For each point the surrounding stadium surface and the Berkeley hills behind it are scanned in every direction the sun can come from to give a horizon profile. A seat is in direct sun when the sun is higher than that horizon. Games are sampled every 10 minutes for 3.5 hours. Kickoffs not yet announced are modelled at each ACC window (12:30 pm, 4:30 pm, 7:30 pm Pacific).

How rows are placed

A line is walked out from the field wall through each section and the rows follow the climbing rake. Row depth is measured on the open east side (0.66 m) and used everywhere; on the west side the rows past the visible rake run on under the press box and count as covered.

How the seat views are made

Each view is drawn from a 3D model built from the lidar, from 1.15 m above the seat (seated eye height), facing the field. Only rows open to the sky get a view.

Limits

The lidar was flown in July 2021. We found no official seating change since; the end zone tarps (2022 to 2025) covered seats without moving them, and Cal took them off for 2026.
The seating chart is not drawn to scale, so section directions come from it but section edges can be off by a few seats.
Not modelled: the Anchises University Club (U1 to U10), Section SSS, the field-level clubs and the suites.
Light poles and video boards thinner than the 1 m grid may be missed.

Downloads (CC BY 4.0)

sun-by-section.csv: game, kickoff, section, minutes of sun, shade arrival
sections.json: section geometry and row-by-row sightlines