How the Vaught-Hemingway seat and sun data is measured

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

Sources

Stadium shape: USGS 3D Elevation Program lidar, Mississippi Central Delta 2018 collection (flown 8 February 2019), 4 tiles. First-return points gridded to 1 m, noise removed.
Section order, student, band and visitor areas: the official Ole Miss stadium map. That map is not drawn to scale, so each section is placed by its position around the stand and measured from the lidar.
Row lists, covered rows and team sides: rateyourseats.com section notes.
Gates, bag rules, first aid and parking: the Ole Miss A-Z guide. Capacity: olemisssports.com.
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, 6624 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, which includes the press box, the Rebel Club deck and the south end zone suites. A seat is in direct sun when the sun is higher than that horizon. Games are sampled every 10 minutes for 3.5 hours, at every kickoff time the SEC has left open for that game.

How rows are placed

A line is walked out from the field through each section and the measured rake is followed until it meets the structures behind the seats. Where a covered row is published, the open rows are spread over the visible slope in front of it and the covered rows continue at the same depth under the deck. Row depths range from 0.799 to 0.799 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. Views are only drawn for open rows.

Limits

The lidar was flown in February 2019. The seating bowl has not changed since the 2016 north end zone expansion; the Founders Suites being added above the west press box for 2027 are not seats.
The Rebel Club, the west skyboxes and the south end zone suites and South Zone Club are indoor and not modelled as seats. Light poles 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