The cutterhead of the tunnel boring machine is fitted with various cutters. The positioning dimension of various cutters is very important. The formwork ruler, frequently used at present, is generally applied to the manufacturing and installation stage of cutters and cutterhead; and it is not universal. A special formwork ruler is required to be customized with respect to the arrangement scheme for different cutters. In this paper, the total station is used to measure the 3D coordinates of the place where cutters are located; the calculation formulas for different installation and positioning dimensions of cutters are deduced by the principles of space analytic geometry; the indirect measurement and calculation can be carried out for determining whether the installation and positioning dimensions of cutters meet the requirement for designed dimensional tolerance. The feasibility of the indirect measurement mentioned above is verified by measuring the practical positioning dimensions of cutters of the tunnel boring machine and comparing with formwork ruler results.