The PDF Manual.
Modified: November 20, 2021

Desktop Insight is now free!

Download it from the Files panel in your Insight-live.com account or from the home page at https://digitalfire.com (current downloads only include the program file, manual, starter recipe, materials - overrides data is built in).

Desktop Insight is legacy, we had to move on-line

We moved functionality to a private account at Insight-Live.com - because people now expect to get at their data from any device anywhere. And for our survival. Ceramic lab work is much bigger than glaze chemistry, it is a physical world where testing, observation, record-keeping are vital. Insight-Live is about maintaining that data. Its recipes share pictures, they have firing schedules, notes, development history, testing data, links, they belong to projects. And they accumulate into the thousands and are easy to find and compare.

Importing Desktop Insight recipes into your Insight-Live.com account

Desktop Insight, by default, opens and saves recipes to its INSIGHTDATA.DB recipe database file (that file is in your documents/insight folder, it can be uploaded and imported into Insight-live). If Desktop Insight does not find the INSIGHTDATA.DB file on startup, it imports, into its database, all the recipe files (e.g. RCP, RCX) it finds in your documents/insight/recipe folder (it does not erase the original files, but no longer uses them). From then on, when you choose File -> Open (not File -> Open File System) you open recipes from its database (using the Recipe Database Window). When you Save you save to the database. See page 94 of the manual for more information.

Why is Insight-Live so much different to use than Desktop Insight?

Because you have to be able to compare ten recipes side-by-side. For physics as well as chemistry. And people need to be able to find thousands on any device from anywhere.

Desktop Insight focusses solely on glaze chemistry

Insight FAQ

There is a direct relationship between the way ceramic glazes fire and their chemistry. Insight is a calculation tool anyone can use to learn and harness the power of glaze chemistry.

• Fix problems like crazing, blistering, pinholing, settling, gelling, clouding, leaching, crawling, marking, scratching, powdering.
• Substitute frits or incorporate better, cheaper materials, replace no-longer-available ones (all while maintaining the same chemistry).
• Adjust melting temperature, gloss, surface character, color.
• Identify weaknesses in glazes to avoid problems.
• Create and optimize base glazes to work with difficult colors or stains and for special effects dependent on opacification, crystallization or variegation.
• Create glazes from scratch and use your own native materials in the highest possible percentage.

Without glaze chemistry you'll never really have control and you could be a slave to your suppliers or the trafficing in recipes that never work.

Overwhelmed by glaze chemistry? Try starting here.

What People Have Said

"I have tested at least 1001 recipes and I can only wish it had been 1001 glorious nights. I have boxes full of bad tests. I am ashamed of the pots I have dressed in a ho-hum manner. It seems that after creating my beloved pots, I hand them over to 'death by glaze and extreme heat'...so here I am, the Internet Illiterate, 1001 glaze test wonder, and I am finally on the right track!""

"If I owe you money for the use of this software please let me know and I'd be happy to remit. I don't want to freeload on all your hard work and I truly mean hard work."

"The software and the lessons are fascinating...thank you for all the good information."

"I am up and running with the latest version - easy install- love it."

"I still find Insight amazing. If my wife would give me some time, I would use it alot more. Thank you for developing the program and the help you gave me in the past."

"I learned the longhand of glaze formulation in art school (before computers....) and have done the trial of Insight. Great program (my paying job is as a computer tech in a school)."