I’ve seen these used by golfers and at shooting ranges. The terminal end of the laser is always a hard object. I want to measure the distance from the deck of a ship to the water. Obviously there’s a difference between the surface of water and a hard object. So, will a range finder work for my intended purpose? Thx.
You’d have to find some wavelength that would reliably bounce off the water instead of scattering or absorbing. The angle hitting the water surface would matter too. I don’t think it would be easy or very reliable unless you could float some sort of reflective surface on the water, like some sort of buoy.
Radar altimeters might be worth considering? They make some for drones, but I’m not sure how well they work over water.
There are also ultrasonic rangefinders that as marketed as sensing water level (see diagram at the bottom of the page)…
