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 a large experience in characterization of ceramic materials ... development of glazes and pigments (several publications in renowned magazines and encyclopedias) ... I find the website, the database and the software of Digitalfire very good and I would like to offer my help as a consultant or editor."

"I have looked at your website for years but only now after running our company for 15 years am I frustrated enough to spend the time needed to LEARN more about glazes. Some of my glazes are metal marking."

"It's also become obvious that even with glaze software I need to have a lot of information in my head, which means education, and obviously you hold the edge there too with your excellent website."

"Excellent. Worked Perfectly. I'm looking forward to driving Level 2. Thanks for all of your great work on behalf of potters."

"The method of calculating a Cornwall Stone substitute described in the manual has saved us more than the cost of INSIGHT."

"I formulate clays and glazes for a clay manufacturer ... Insight has been a valuable asset to our formulation process and the testing procedures you recommend have been of great use to us over the years as well. "


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