How the Ohio Stadium seat and sun data is measured

Every number comes from a USGS lidar survey of the stadium, NOAA solar equations, the official Ohio State zoned seating chart and published row lists. Nothing is estimated from photos or copied from ticket sites.

Sources

Stadium shape: USGS 3D Elevation Program lidar, Ohio Columbus 2019 collection (tiles BS821727 to BS823730). First-return points gridded to 1 m, noise removed.
Section shapes and positions: the official Ohio Stadium zoned seating chart, lined up with the field and stands in the lidar.
Row lists, covered rows and team sides: rateyourseats.com section notes.
Block O, gates, bag rules, food and parking: ohiostatebuckeyes.com.
Sun: NOAA solar position equations. Weather: ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo.

How shade is computed

Each open-air section is sampled on 3 lines (left, centre, right) at every row, 9573 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. Rows under a deck are treated as covered. Games are sampled every 10 minutes for 3.5 hours.

How rows are placed

In the A deck, row depth (0.756 m) is set so the published first covered row (Row 35) falls where the lidar shows B deck begins overhead. In the South Stadium, rows run back from the top edge of the stand. In C deck, each section's rows are spread over the measured deck. Row depths range from 0.622 to 1.0 m.

26 sections (east and north B deck, D deck) are under a deck for every row. The lidar sees only the roof above them, so we publish their rows and cover but no heights, distances, views or sun minutes.

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. Views are only drawn for rows with open sky above.

Limits

The lidar is from 2019. Anything built or changed since (such as new south end zone suites) is not in the shadow model.
Kickoff times are TV picks. Noon, 3:30 and 7:30 pm are modelled until the time is announced, then pages update automatically.
Suites, clubs and the press box are not modelled as seats.

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