How the Lincoln Financial Field seat and sun data is measured

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

Sources

Stadium shape: USGS 3D Elevation Program lidar, Pennsylvania 17 County collection (flown 31 January 2025), 1 tile. First-return points gridded to 1 m, noise removed.
Section directions: the section order round the stadium from a ticket map (section centres only), lined up with the field in the lidar.
Row lists, covered rows, clubs and team sides: rateyourseats.com section notes.
Gates, bag rules, parking, tailgating and transit: lincolnfinancialfield.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, 8886 seat points in total. For each point the surrounding stadium surface is 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. Rows under the deck or canopy above count as shade.

How rows are placed

A line is walked out from the field edge through each section, and the measured profile is split into tiers by height: the lower bowl up to about 10.6 m, the clubs and mezzanine about 14 to 25 m up, and the 200 level about 26 to 47 m up (the north end stand from about 21 m). Where a cover row is published, the row depth is the open length of the tier divided by the rows in front of it. Row depths range from 0.55 to 0.893 m.

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 January 2025. For the 2026 FIFA World Cup about 1,000 corner seats were removed to widen the field (Delaware County Daily Times, 13 May 2026). No source names the sections or confirms they were all put back for the Eagles season, so the corner sections are modelled as scanned.
Rows under the deck above or the canopy are hidden from above, so their position is extended along the measured slope and shown as covered.
The sideline 200s, the mezzanine and parts of the clubs are visible from above for only a few metres before the canopy or deck above hides them. Their rows are packed at our 0.55 m minimum, so front-to-back distances and heights for their back rows are approximate (a few metres short). The published cover rows are kept as published.
Section edges come from the section order round the stadium, not an official drawing, so a section's sideways extent can be off by a seat or two.
The Eagles sideline (west) is from rateyourseats.com section notes; the stadium A-Z guide places Section 101 on the west side.
Light poles and video boards thinner than the 1 m grid may be missed.
No seat view for Sections M8, M9, M10, M11: too few open rows to render. Their rows and sun minutes are still shown.

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