plane table

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A portable surveying instrument consisting essentially of a drawing board and a ruler mounted on a tripod and used to sight and map topographical details.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To survey with a plane-table.
• noun An important instrument of topographical surveying, consisting of a drawing-board mounted upon a tripod, and capable of being leveled and turned in azimuth, sometimes also having two horizontal motions of translation.
• noun In mining, an inclined table or surface of boards on which ore is dressed; a frame, or framing-table. Also plain-table.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• See under plane, a.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun cartography A particular kind of instrument used by surveyors in mapmaking.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun surveying instrument consisting of a drawing board and a ruler that are mounted on a tripod; used to sight and map topographical details