When you cannot stand under the point you want to measure, laser meters offer indirect modes: shoot the slant distance to the point and the horizontal distance to the wall, and the device computes the height with Pythagoras. This calculator does the same from your readings, so you can check a result or work with a meter that lacks the mode.
Indirect (Pythagoras) measurement
How to shoot it
- All shots from the same point: do not move the meter between readings.
- The horizontal shot must be level and perpendicular to the wall; a tilt of a few degrees is the usual cause of a wrong height.
- Make the angle generous. If the slant is only a little longer than the horizontal, a 2 mm error in either reading becomes several centimetres in the height.