How / where can i measure the height above sea level for a building?
stand a known distance from the base of the building whose height you want to measure, then use either a sextant or a theodolite to measure the angle of the horizontal from where you’re standing to the tip of the building. once you have this angle and the known horizontal angle from where you’re standing, then you can use the trigonometric relation h = d * tan(angle), where ‘h’ is the height you’re after, ‘d’ the distance from you to the base of the building, and obviously ‘angle’ for the measured angle (in degrees).
If the building you want to measure happens to be in a major city, you can use Google Earth. Turn on “3d buildings” in in the “layers” box and all the big ones in cities like New York become 3d. Move the view so you are looking down and when you move the cursor over the top of the building you’ll see the altitude in the middle of the bottom status bar.
