How the Rose Bowl seat and sun data is measured

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

Sources

Stadium shape: USGS 3D Elevation Program lidar, Los Angeles County 2016 collection. First-return points gridded to 1 m, noise removed.
Section positions: the official Rose Bowl Stadium map (Tournament of Roses), lined up with the 28 section tunnels visible in the lidar.
Row lists, team sides and student rows: rateyourseats.com section notes.
Schedule: uclabruins.com. Parking and bag rules: rosebowlstadium.com.
Sun: NOAA solar position equations. Weather: ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo.

How shade is computed

Each section is sampled on 3 lines (left, centre, right) at every row, 6333 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.

How rows are placed

Rows are spaced at one measured tread (about 0.6 m) down from the top of the bowl, so Row 77 is always the top row. The missing rows 26 and 27 (the walkway at the tunnel mouths) keep their space, so distances below and above the walkway stay true.

How the seat views are made

Each view is drawn from a 3D model of the bowl built from the measured shape, from 1.15 m above the seat (seated eye height), facing the field. The press box (Terry Donahue Pavilion) on the west side is taken from the lidar. Trees outside the rim are left out.

Limits

The lidar is from 2016. Anything built later is not in the shadow model.
Trees around the Arroyo can shade the top rows late in the day; they are in the horizon model, but trees change.
Suites 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