The altimeter is an instrument placed on a platform for uniaxial measurement, and the ideal placement platform is a granite platform. Altimeters, like other precision instruments, have certain requirements for the environment. Their optimal working environment is (20 ± 2) ℃, and the humidity is 55% - 65%. The purpose is to ensure the accuracy of data.

Laser ranging altimeters generally use two methods to measure distance: pulse method and phase method. The process of pulse method ranging is as follows: The laser emitted by the ranging instrument is reflected by the measured object and then received by the ranging instrument, which simultaneously records the time of the laser's round-trip. Half the product of the speed of light and the round-trip time is the distance between the distance meter and the object being measured. The accuracy of the pulse method for measuring distance is generally around+/- 1 meter. In addition, the measurement blind area of such distance measuring instruments is generally about 5 meters.