The history of the sextant and octant started in the 17th century and was developed from instruments such as the cross-staff and the Davis quadrant or backstaff. The sextant uses a double reflection for measuring angles.

The survey sextant is an adaptation from the nautical sextant specifically geared towards measuring horizontal angles rather than astronomical bodies. It generally lacks the filters and has additional legs for sitting it upside down.

In the Netherlands survey sextants from both Dutch makers as well as foreign sextants were used in surveying with the Dutch government and Dredging companies.

The station pointer is used to plot a position using the Snellius method, that is by using two angles between three or four points.