A complete plane table and alidade set with tripod stand for field mapping and civil survey fieldwork — stocked at Multi Trade Combines, Guwahati, price on request.
Digital total stations and GPS instruments have transformed surveying practice. Yet plane table and alidade surveying retains a place in the curriculum of every civil engineering and diploma programme in India — and in the fieldwork of survey departments operating in terrain where an instrument needs to be simple, battery-independent, and operable by a single trained surveyor without a data collector or laptop in the field.
Northeast India's terrain is among the most demanding in the country for surveyors. Forests of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, the flood-plain channels of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries, tea-estate internal roads in Jorhat and Golaghat, and village site plans in hilly Manipur and Mizoram all require plot-level surveying where a plane table team can move efficiently without carrying digital infrastructure that may not survive humidity, dust, and extended field deployment.
The method works as follows: the drawing sheet is mounted on the table, the table is set up and levelled at a known station using the spirit level and plumbing fork, and the alidade is used to sight a distant point. The surveyor rules a pencil line along the alidade's ruler edge — this ray represents the bearing to the sighted point. By moving to a second station and repeating the process, intersecting rays locate the point precisely on the sheet. The map builds up directly in the field, with real-time visual checking against the visible landscape.
Engineering colleges in Guwahati, Jorhat Engineering College, North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology (NERIST) in Arunachal Pradesh, and state polytechnics across the region purchase complete plane table sets from Multi Trade Combines for laboratory and field survey practicals. Government survey departments use them for small-scale boundary and plot demarcation work where electronic instruments are not issued or not justified for short-duration tasks.
| Category | Surveying Instruments |
|---|---|
| Key specs | Complete set with stand |
| Set contents | Plane table board, quick-release tripod, alidade, spirit level, plumbing fork |
| Table size | Typically 60 × 45 cm or 75 × 60 cm |
| Alidade type | Telescopic alidade with stadia cross-hairs or plain vane alidade |
| Availability | In stock — price on request |
Total stations, auto levels, digital theodolites, and more from Multi Trade Combines, Guwahati
Plane table surveying is a graphical field method where the surveyor draws the map directly on a sheet of paper mounted on the table in the field, rather than recording numbers to be plotted later. The alidade (a straight-edge with sighting vanes or a telescopic scope) is used to sight distant points and draw direction rays. It is particularly useful for surveys of irregular terrain — rocky hillsides in Arunachal Pradesh, tea-garden boundaries in Assam, and village layout surveys — where the field conditions and the map can be checked simultaneously without office calculations.
Yes. Multi Trade Combines supplies the plane table and alidade as a complete set including the wooden table, quick-release tripod stand, alidade, plumbing fork, spirit level, and drawing pins. Drafting sheets are available separately. Contact us for the current configuration and pricing for educational institutions, government survey departments, and private contractors.