Going back around the year 3000 a. of C. the Babylonians and Egyptians already used strings and chains for the measurement of distances.

Until 560 a. of C. there are no references of new instrumentation until Anaximando introduced the "Gnomon".

The "corobates" or first approximation of a level, was a horizontal rule with legs at the four corners, at the top of the ruler there was a groove where water was poured to use it as a level. On the other hand, Heron mentioned the way to obtain a distance meter by means of the revolutions of a wheel.

Ptolemy, about 150 a. of C. discovered the quadrant applying it to astronomical observations. It can be considered as ancestor of the theodolite to the astrolabe of Hipparchus.

 

Viturvio refers to the distance measuring carts by means of lap counters, although the precision measurements were followed step by step counters. Viturbio was also the constructor of the first square applying the foundation of the right triangle of Pythagoras.

The Arabs, relying on the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans, used astrolabes divided into 5 arc minutes.

About the year 1300, described by Levi Ben Gerson, a mechanism is known for the indirect measurement of distances, (later Jacob's bar), by moving a bar perpendicular to another main graduated, which thus provided the parallactic angles.

 

The compass from its birth with the Chinese to the reference in 1187 of Alexander Neckman, with the later development introduced by Leonardo Da Vinci and Schmalcalder became the precursor of the theodolite. Oronzio Phineo, in his book "Practical Geometry", applies the compass to a semicircle graduated with two allies, one fixed and another mobile. The next step towards the current goniometer was the improvement introduced by Josua Habernel with the theodolite-compass dating from 1576.

 

Johan Praetorius perfected the planchette, which for a long time was the finest and most advanced instrument that topographers could count on.

It seems that prior to Galileo, there is news that a Dutch optician, Hans Lippershey, devised a kind of telescope without actually assembling it; Galileo was the one who set up his telescope, continuing with Kepler's telescope and from this to the improvement introduced by Christian Huygens who placed a reticle to perform aiming. William Gascoigne added the screw of the slow movements into the theodolites.

In 1610 appears the chain of surveyor and in 1720 the first theodolite was built as such, this came equipped with four leveling screws, whose authorship is by Jonathan Sisson.

Tobias Mayer changed the real threads of the reticle, to the date of spider threads, by a recording in the lens itself. Ignacio Porro contributed his self-reducing telescope and tachymeter to advances in the field of instrumentation.

Pedro Núñez provided a reading mechanism for a quadrant, dividing in concentric circles in (n-1) of the previous one, thus giving birth to the vernier. Jhon Sisson built the first goniometer in 1730, improved by Jesé Ramsden, who introduced microscopes with micrometric screws for angular readings. In 1778, William Green discovered an optical system with horizontal lids for the indirect measurement of distance, later Richenbach added statistical threads in his ally in 1810.

The first distance meter was manufactured in Russia in 1936. Wadley obtained a microwave distance meter, the Telurometer. Until 1968, electro-otic laser distance meters will not appear

From the electronic collection of angles, both in its incremental and absolute versions, we pass almost without realizing the conception of the current total station, improving the angular reading, as well as the measurement of distances

Finally, indicate that the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) allow us to capture data in real time.