How the PNC Park seat and sun data is measured

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

Sources

Ballpark shape: USGS 3D Elevation Program lidar, Western Pennsylvania 2019 collection (flown 26 November 2019), 2 tiles. First-return points gridded to 1 m, noise removed.
Home plate: placed so the measured outfield wall matches the official distances (325, 383 to 389, 399, 375 and 320 ft); the fit is within about 1.5 m.
Section order and direction from home plate: a public ticket map of PNC Park (section and row centre points only). It is not drawn to scale, so it gives each section's direction; distances and heights come from the lidar.
Row lists and covered rows: rateyourseats.com.
Gates, bags, food and first aid: the PNC Park A-Z guide. Capacity: MLB.com.
Sun: NOAA solar position equations. Weather: ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo.

How shade is computed

Each section is sampled on 3 lines at every row, 6030 seat points in total. For each point the ballpark surface is scanned in every direction the sun can come from, including the upper deck and its roof. A seat is in direct sun when the sun is higher than that horizon. Games are sampled every 10 minutes for 2 hours 45 minutes, on the 15th of each month from April to September, at 1:35 pm, 4:05 pm and 6:40 pm.

How rows are placed

A line is walked out from home plate through each section and the measured rake is split into decks by height jumps. Field level and the 100 level share the first rake, with the 100 level starting behind the field boxes; the 300 level is the high upper rake. Rows are spread over the visible slope in front of the published cover row.

Limits

The lidar was flown in November 2019. Since then the Pirates have added new seating in some sections and the Riverwalk bar areas; the bowl itself is unchanged.
The 200 level club between the foul poles (201 to 235) sits under the upper deck, so the lidar can't see it. Those sections are treated as covered and shaded, with no seat views.
Suites, the Home Plate Club interior and standing-room areas are not modelled as seats.

Downloads (CC BY 4.0)

sun-by-section.csv: month, start time, section, minutes of sun, shade arrival
sections.json: section geometry and row-by-row sightlines