ANGLE MEASUREMENTS

Objective

- Understand the principles of measuring an angle – horizontal or vertical

- Understand instruments that measure angles – theodolite or total station
- Describe all components of a theodolite
- Be able to measure angles using theodolite/ total station

ANGLES

Measurement of:

A. Horizontal angle enables determination of a bearing or direction. These in turn are used in other
applications like
- setting out a building, road, railway line, bridge etc. (infrastructure development)
- locating detail (features) to enable their mapping (topographic mapping)
- establishing control survey (determination of coordinates for new points)

B. Vertical angles enables determination of heights of points by method of trigonometry. Also

enable calculation of horizontal distances from slope distances
 - ZA is the zenith angle as measured from the zenith to the target line
- α is the elevation/depression angle as measured from the horizontal plane to the target line

Theodolite: Precision instruments that measure both horizontal and vertical angles. They can be either:

- optical in which case they are read manually

- electronic with LCD display of angles

Accuracy of theodolite: Is given by the smallest reading that can be read directly. Typical accuracies are:

- 1” – very precise and in many cases used for geodetic/ survey work
- 6” – useful in locating detail
- 20” – used in many engineering constructions
- 0.1” is also available for very precise geodetic work
Total stations: These are precise electronic instruments that measure both angles and distances. They
share many features with total stations. They are today more common than theodolites.

Measurement of angles
How to determine the accuracy of theodolite to use for a given tolerance:

If one wants to measure a horizontal angle to a point about 100m from theodolite position to an
accuracy of 5mm, then
PARTS OF AN ELECTRONIC THEODOLITE
DETACHING A THEODOLITE
CENTERING THE THEODOLITE
THE MAIN ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS
SINGLE AND DUAL AXIS COMPENSATION
EFFECT ON VERTICAL ANGLE

EFFECT ON HORIZONTAL ANGLE

OPTICAL THEODOLITES

These were very common in the past. Basically differ with electronic theodolite in their reading system.