Conquer the Glaze Dragon With INSIGHT Glaze Chemistry Software
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.

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 just spent the past week in Belleville with Ron Roy, learning how to use INSIGHT. I just ordered Level II INSIGHT. Can't wait to get started revising my Gersley Borate recipes!"

"I'm back on track with my glaze tests! I'm using Insight to change the expansion of a red / purple glaze. Your program really is teaching me."

"I really want to get the glaze stuff in my head. I am a chemist by profession. For almost 30 years I kept my clay as escape and did not focus on the science part of it. Now trying to integrate it all. "

"I will be teaching a glaze formulation class in a few weeks and would love to purchase the program for educational use as I have done in the past at a previous college. It is a wonderful tool and I cannot imagine teaching glaze work without it!"

"I have been doing pottery for 10 years after retirement and following the glaze recipe path. Your advice and approach have made a huge contribution to my naive understanding of what I am doing with glazes."

"I mostly work with crystalline glazes. All the European potters speak in terms of Seger formulas so I have to become proficient with the program if I am to communicate with them."


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