Height of Object from Angle of Elevation Using Tangent

distance d

82.1

angle of elevation θ (°)

50

You can find the height

h

of an object from the angle of elevation

θ

and the distance

d

along the ground from the obsever to the foot of the object.

In this Demonstration the object is an obelisk.

The tangent of an angle

θ

in a right triangle is the length of the opposite divided by the length of the adjacent side. In this case,

tanθ=h/d

. Therefore the height of the obelisk is given by

h=dtanθ

.