Personal, and data of buddies — as far as they are known — are stored inside the <diver> section. First name, surname, date of birth, sex, address, educational level and more information is stored here. Only that information is given which is known, otherwise this element is omitted.

The own diving equipment shall be documented. In the course of the years some parts are newly purchased, others are sold etc. To keep the overview, UDDF offers the <equipment> section (inside <diver>) where for all parts of equipment general (manufacturer, model, serial number, date of purchase, shop, price etc.) and special information (tank volume, tank suitable for Nitrox? etc.) can be given. The <equipment> section cannot only be started for the <owner> of the UDDF file but also for every buddy.

Additionally, a database of frequently visited lakes is started. This is done inside the <divesite> section where among other things the country, possibly the exact place (latitude, longitude, height above sea level), and the maximum depth (not the maximum depth reached during a dive!) can be stored.

A wreck enthusiast will also add a wreck database, of course. For this, information about some ships is collected from books and the internet, as there are name (of course! :-) ), nationality, launching date, tonnage, date of sinking, position of the wreck etc. which all will be stored in the UDDF file.

At (possibly) subsequently given dives simply a cross reference can be made to buddies stored in the <diver> section. This has the advantage that these data have to be given only once. The same goes for all in the UDDF file stored parts of equipment, dive spots etc., of course.

A Red Sea dive cruise. The participants use dive computers of different manufacturers. Though all members of the group dive more or less the same profile, during ascent the dive computers show no, or different long decompression times. Some dive computers give an alarm concerning too fast ascending. Back on board all profile data of the dive computers were copied onto a notebook and exported to UDDF. Following the profiles can be recalculated — possibly with different decompression models and/or with variying parameters — and analyzed with third party software e.g.

UDDF is also best suitable for the making out of teaching material. Without major efforts it is possible to calculate and analyze tissue saturations for a given dive profile using different programs, and to demonstrate the variying saturation respiring different breathing gases e.g.

For a planned wreck dive to a depth of 95 metres using Trimix decompression tables are to be calculated. For safety reasons this shall be accomplished using different programs, or different decompression models respectively. As far as the programs used support UDDF, only one (!) UDDF file must be generated. This file is imported by the programs, the table(s) is(are) calculated and afterwards the results are exported to HTML (or another supported format).

For a planned wreck dive sailing cruise off of the French coast of the Mediterranean Sea some promising destinations are picked from the literature and the data of some wrecks are stored in an UDDF file before. During sailing the exact GPS data of the course, and the wrecks are determined. The dive profiles are downloaded from the computers to a PDA and converted to UDDF. At home again all data are copied to a PC and combined in one UDDF file with an electronic logbook program. Comments and digital photos are added. Following, the logbook program generates a HTML file from the UDDF file for publication in the internet!

A dive expedition shall be documented "live" in the internet. After a dive the profile data are read and exported to UDDF. The software reads the UDDF file and exports the dive profile to a graphics file. Additionally, photos taken during dive preparations, and video sequences and photos taken during the dive are added to the UDDF file. For illustrative reasons a decompression table, and a graphical ascent profile respectively, are generated for the next dive to be done on basis of the tissue saturation due to the previous dive. Out of all these data, gathered in one UDDF file, subsequently automatically a (or several) HTML file(s) is(are) generated, which is transmitted via satellite to the homepage of the project! :-)