Bruce,

Thanks for your comments and questions. Let me address your questions first
in a general way and then specifically if the need arises. One of my
primary goals in working with Erik, Simon, Graeme, Andy, Sue et al in the
development of the program was twofold. First I wanted to help create a
very simple program that allowed one to make changes at any point in the
dive easily and quickly. I wanted to stay away from the graphical games
that take a lot of time. We wanted a program that was for diving ie punch
it out and go. I was/am pretty frustrated by anything that detracts from
getting a dive schedule quickly and playing with various aspects of a given
dive.

Secondly, I wanted to address several seemingly mysterious parameters like
deep stops and safety factors. Erik Baker and I have spent quite some time
looking over profiles and playing with schedules in Wakulla or on a 30'
reef. I feel that "safety factors" as they are generally applied are
essentially meaningless, give basically inconsistent results, and do
nothing to further our knowledge or indeed or actual safety. Deep stops are
relatively similar with no real dependable methodology. Our goal with the
max stop depth and gradient factor use was to merge our real experience
along with my work with Erik to create a logical and predictable system. I
feel confident that this system offers divers the absolute best way to
personalize their dives and safety factors and to choose a sensible deep
stop range.

We have some great stuff in the works and are playing with a lot of great
additions for Decoplan. In truth I would have kept it behind the scenes for
another year tinkering and adding but so many people really wanted to get
their hands on it that I figured we really needed to get it out and make
the additions. We have been testing the process for years now and I have
the utmost confidence and a great deal of personal experience with these
schedules but we recognize that the interface and some of the additions we
will make continue to improve efficiency and value.

Sorry for the long preamble but I wanted you to understand where we are
coming from. 

As for the differences from what George recommends I can most easily say
that those processes are experimental and are not be yet reasonably
justifiable in a public software program. For some time I have been working
to find a good compromise and to establish a good way to use Decoplanner
and our experience to expand the understanding of decompression theory and
practice. Now that Erik is in FL this process will be even more effective.
For example, on many of George's dives and several of my own our m-value
percents are well above 100%. I could not in good conscious recommend this
to anyone. Similar processes are true with the other areas you mention.
Certainly with some more research, testing, and "guinea pigs" we will
continue to allow greater options and flexibility. We are already in the
works with a host of upgrades (free to Decoplan users) that will provide
more flexibility and I have been discussing the degree to which we can go
with these options.

Now please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Best,
JJ


At 02:52 PM 1/4/00 -0800, Bruce R'. Miller wrote:
>

>> This time only 54 minutes of deco.  Without deep stops you have a
>> total dive
>> time of a scary 48 minutes and the deep stops start at only 80 feet.
>
>With pure Buhlmann ZHL-16b and no deep stops you get 45 minutes of deco,
>starting at 70 feet.  The total run time is 80 minutes.  You can get the
>deco time down to 35 minutes if you use optimum gases for each stop (i.e.
>CCR@1.6).  Not that I advise that.  I just thought the pure Buhlmann example
>would supplement the discussion.  Personally, I would take about an hour to
>do the deco, starting at 150, a long stop at 20 on O2, and then a 5-10
>minute ascent to the surface.
>
>If DecoPlan is based on ZHL-16b (just for the shape, I presume) then how
>does it differ?  I assume that it has special deep stop calculations and
>those deep stops to not contribute to the gas loading.  And the M-value
>supersaturation gradients are customizable.  Is that it?
>
>The web page to DecoPlan says it handles repetitive dives and penalizes
>subsequent dives, but I've seen George III say recently that repetitive
>dives are not affected.  I'm a bit confused by this.
>
>And just to be clear, I am not attacking DecoPlan in any way.  I've
>personally implemented ZHL-16b w/ Baker's "gradient factor" and having done
>so I am simply curious as to how DecoPlan differs from this.
>
>I think that what everyone is looking for here is more
>quantitative/mechanical information on how to calculate profiles the way the
>WKPP/GUE guys do.  If this is proprietary information then I apologize for
>asking.
>
>-bruce
> 




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