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've learned as much about glazes in last 4 weeks as 20 years."

"Thanks for your email, great software and amazing site. Install was very easy and I spent a few minutes last evening checking Insight's elements. Very solid! I found your site many years ago and was really impressed with its content. "

"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 :)"

"I am the only one using INSIGHT, almost everyone here lives under the influence of the Glaze Dragon. I am beginning to change their minds but it is taking me a lot of time... but one step at a time. It is incredible how a big company still trust the old way of formulating glazes. Thanks to your program and book Magic of Fire, I have been able to develop, correct and optimize glazes according to our clients needs! "

"I am a BFA ceramics student who has just downloaded the trial version of your Insight software. What a great program!! "

"Very satisfied."


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