An improved three-dimensional position detector and measurement system includes one or more transmitters that each transmit planar light beams and a strobe pulse and a receiver that responds to illumination from the beams and the strobe. The receiver in the system includes calibration logic for executing a quadratic mathematical algorithm to uniquely characterize said planar beams of each of said optical transmitters active in said measurement field. In one embodiment, the quadratic mathematical algorithm uses cones to represent the scan path of the planar beams.

An optically based location system and method of determining a location at a structure include a lighting infrastructure having lights at a structure. Each light is configured to illuminate and to transmit a respective relative or absolute terrestrial position through modulation of emitted light. An optical receiver is configured to detect the lights, to demodulate the position of detected lights, and to determine from the detection a position of the receiver. The receiver can have a conventional optical detector for determining a two-dimensional position of the receiver relative to a detected light, or can have a three-dimensional spot collimating lens and charged couple device optical detector for determining a three-dimensional position of the receiver relative to a detected light. The receiver and lights can be synchronized for converting a delay time into a distance measurement to calculate a distance between a light and the receiver.

An automatic surveying system includes a telescopic optical system; an image pickup device for picking up an image of a graduated face of a level rod, to which the telescopic optical system is to be collimated, and converting the image into image data; a memory which stores therein recognition data of at least one of a pattern, numbers, and scale calibrations, provided on the graduated face of the level rod; and an analyzing device for analyzing and recognizing the picked-up image of the at least one of the pattern, numbers, and scale calibrations of the level rod, based on the image data of the level rod picked up by the image pickup device and the recognition data of the pattern, numbers, and scale calibrations, read from the memory, to obtain a measurement.

Methods and systems for position sensing are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes measuring at least three discrete point positions associated with a first component by using at least one transmitter having a known position and orientation and in a line of sight with the three discrete point positions, the three discrete point positions having known distances relative to one another. The method computes a current position and orientation of the first component using data provided by the at least one transmitter and the three discrete point positions, along with position and orientation data from a last known location of the first component assuming that no sudden position changes since the first component has moved from the last known location. The first and second components may be a workpiece and a tool that performs a manufacturing operation on the workpiece.