system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What are surveyors doing when I see them looking through that tripod?

How do they use that to figure what/how they are going to build?
gpt
First year surveyor here. The tripods which surveyors use are just devices for holding instruments level. There's many instruments which surveyors use, but the most common would be the total station. This has a telescope on it which is used to sight a target or point, from which the angle and distance to that point can be calculated. Other instruments include; levels which are used for calculating heights, gps systems for positioning and prisms which are used as targets for total stations.

Basically surveyors are using various instruments to find the spatial position of different points on the earth.