Parsing the .sml (Suunto markup language) file from my dive computer seemed to be too straightforward! There is a start time
<Header>
<DateTime>2015-05-06T12:47:00</DateTime>
and then depths and seconds offset
<Sample>
<Time>80</Time>
<Depth>6.4008</Depth>
</Sample>
All looking good until I noticed the start time was at the top of the minute. ALL my dives seemed to have started at zero seconds. So I guess it could be truncatiing up to 59 seconds off the dive start time - irritating when I'm trying to match the depth against my photographs. Why do they do this - it must have been harder to zero the seconds than to just record the real start time.
Next up is the fact that, according to the manual, the dive computer is only accurate to within 1/3 metre but it records the depth to 4 decimal places - 1/10 of a millimetre. This is verging on the insane.
I have seen these same problems elsewhere. Many cameras record nonsensical EXIF sub-second values. Usually 2 decimal places, but often the accuracy is 0.2 seconds or worse. Very few cameras actually record a reliable sub-second time.
But 4 decimal places for depth is crazy.
- Phil
Did I mention that the dive log records the temperature in Kelvin
<TempAtStart>303.15</TempAtStart>
The depth now goes into the photos and comes out again on the photo's webpage
http://f16.eu/2014/scuba.December/tn/f200_2871.jpg.index.html
And having looked at some divelogs, I think I'll be able to make up for the logs always starting at zero seconds by making sure my camera and dive computer are synchronized and taking a photo when I reach the sea floor.
Ho ho ho! :)