---
title: "Depth profile"
description: "The Plan step's first section: enter the depths you plan to dive and how long you hold each one, and see what a multi-level profile does to the schedule."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.divelogic.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Depth profile

import { LevelCard } from "@/components/react/PlannerScreens";

A level is one depth held for one length of time. The planner's **Depth
Profile** section is a list of them, in the order you dive them, and it is the
only part of the plan that describes the dive itself; everything else describes
how the dive is executed.

## The fields

- **Depth (m)**: the depth held, not an average and not a maximum excursion.
  The planner descends to it, holds it, and ascends from it.
- **Bottom Time (min)**: time at that depth. It starts when the descent reaches
  the level and stops when the ascent away from it begins.
- **Label**: optional free text, such as *wreck bottom*. It replaces "Level 1"
  as the card's title and appears nowhere in the schedule.

A level can be added below or above the one before it. The remove control
appears on every card once there is more than one level, so a single-level plan
has none.

## What bottom time excludes

Bottom time excludes the descent, the travel between levels, and the whole
ascent: decompression stops, travel between stops, and the last stop to the
surface. The number that includes all of it is **runtime**, reported on the
Review step, which is why a 25-minute bottom time can produce a 70-minute dive.

> **Note**
>
> This is the convention MultiDeco and most desktop planners use, and the
> opposite of the "runtime" convention some dive computers display. If you are
> transcribing a schedule from a computer log, check which one it counted.

## Multi-level dives

Levels are dived in the order they appear. The planner does not reorder them,
and it does not require the profile to be monotonic: a dive that drops to 45 m,
comes up to 30 m for twenty minutes, and drops again is a valid three-level
plan.

Tissue loading carries forward across every level. A shallow second level is
not a rest; it is continued on-gassing in the slow compartments while the fast
ones off-gas. The [tissue view](/planning/reviewing) on the Review step is
where that shows up.

## Next

[Gas mixes](/planning/gas-mixes) is the next section down: what you breathe at
those depths, and when you switch. Also worth reading:
[tissue compartments](/theory/tissues).

Source: https://docs.divelogic.ai/planning/levels/index.mdx