The PDF Manual.
Modified: November 20, 2021
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"Thanks for the follow up. Everything worked great - your instructions are easy to follow - thanks. It's great to know that you are available should any questions arise. I plan to explore the links you've provided - want to really understand glaze well eventually - thanks so much!"
"I really like this program...I really like it a lot. In 1995 I started doing pottery. I was always interested in making glazes and took a glaze calculation glass from one of the instructors at the community college that I attend. We did all the math by hand. I learned the calculation process and about glaze material. I am not computer efficient, but when I found out from a classmate that there was software to do the math I looked at what was available. I tried one other program before I tried Insight. Insight provided me with the tools to increase my testing ability during the semester about 100 fold."
"Everything downloaded perfectly onto my Mac and the video lessons are really helping me understand the software. I've been using INSIGHT to swap out materials in glaze recipes with similar materials available in 'the shed'. Also, I am trying to move from ^10 gas to ^6 electric. I will be graduating soon so I am trying to prepare myself for a method of making that more cost effective. School starts tomorrow and I can't wait to test out some of my new ideas :)"
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"Given the chance, I would like to say how helpful I have found the program. With what I have learned about glaze formulation from reading and workshops, Insight makes it easy to apply and evaluate my findings."