User Guide · Know the Sea · Own the Depths

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MuirWave turns a chart position into a picture of how sound travels through the water beneath it — and how far a source can be heard. This guide teaches you to run a prediction, read what it tells you, and turn it into regulator-ready assessment work. No acoustics degree required; if you know your survey area and your source, MuirWave does the physics.

§01

What MuirWave predicts, and who it's for

Drop a pin anywhere at sea and MuirWave models the underwater sound field around it — how a signal weakens with range and depth (transmission loss), how far it stays detectable (the sonar equation), and how far marine life might be affected (impact ranges against recognised thresholds). It runs entirely on your iPad, offline if you need it to, from public-domain ocean data.

01
Marine acousticians & EIA practitioners
Produce defensible impact-range estimates for offshore-wind and environmental-impact assessment, with a methodology export you can put in front of a regulator.
02
Survey & hydrographic crews
Understand how your equipment propagates in the water you're working, plan detection ranges, and check conditions before you deploy.
03
Researchers & technical mariners
Explore sound-speed structure, convergence zones and bottom-bounce geometry with real climatology and bathymetry, on deck or at the desk.
Civilian tool. MuirWave is built for commercial and scientific ocean-acoustics work — survey, assessment, research and seamanship. The language throughout this guide reflects that world.
§02

The 60-second mental model

Everything in MuirWave follows one simple pipeline. Understand this and the whole app makes sense — every panel is just one stage of it.

1 · Place
A pin on the map
You choose where — a position at sea. MuirWave pulls the seabed depth, sediment and water conditions there.
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2 · Describe
Your source & geometry
Set the frequency, source depth, and what you're listening for. This is the what.
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3 · Solve
MuirWave runs the physics
Ray paths, transmission loss and the sound field are computed from textbook ocean-acoustics equations.
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4 · Read
The answer, in your units
Detection range, depth excess, impact ranges — shown on the map and in the panels, ready to export.
New to the acoustics? The Concepts section explains transmission loss, the sonar equation, convergence zones and impact thresholds in plain language — read it once and the readouts stop being mysterious.
§03

I need to…

Jump straight to what you're trying to do. Each opens a short, step-by-step recipe.

TUTORIAL

Run my first prediction

The complete walk-through: drop a pin, set your source, read transmission loss and detection range — in about ten minutes.

Start the walk-through ›
HOW-TO

Estimate impact ranges

Assess how far a source could affect marine mammals against recognised NMFS / Southall thresholds, ready for an assessment.

Open the recipe ›
HOW-TO

Export a methodology report

Produce the regulator-ready PDF that documents your inputs, data sources and results for an EIA submission.

Open the recipe ›
HOW-TO

Download data for my region

Add high-resolution regional data packs for sharper predictions, and manage what's stored on your device.

Open the recipe ›
HOW-TO

Work fully offline

Understand what MuirWave does at sea with no signal, and how it tells you when it's using fallback data.

Open the recipe ›
REFERENCE

Understand Free, Live & Pro

What each edition unlocks — live ocean data, high-resolution packs, and the professional export tools.

See the editions ›
§04

How this guide is organised

Four kinds of page, so you can find the right depth of help fast:

  • Your First Prediction — learn by doing, one guaranteed-success path.
  • How-To Guides — short recipes for a specific task you already understand.
  • Concepts — the why: the acoustics, in plain language.
  • Reference — the exact facts: units, colour bands, editions, data sources.
  • Glossary — every term, defined in plain language.
Stuck right now? Head to Troubleshooting & FAQ — it covers the three most common surprises: greyed-out controls (an edition/entitlement thing), what the app does with no signal, and restoring a purchase on a new device.