Paul Lewing on sat 15 aug 09
I own every program that will work with the Mac, and I've seen the
ones that only work on PC. When I do a glaze calculation workshop, I
show three of them. In general, I feel that each of them has its
strengths and weaknesses, and that which one you'd like best depends a
lot on what you want a program to do. As with any computer program,
the biases, strengths and intentions of the writer comes through.
I once led a discussion group at NCECA about these programs and
virtually every one agreed on two things:
1. Any program was better than no program.
2. Everybody preferred the program they got familiar with first.
But here are my opinions on the ones I've used.
Matrix. I had an old Mac version of this that almost worked. It has
since been reworked for PC only, so I have no experience with the new
version. I've seen snippets of the new one and I think most of the
really annoying features of the one I had have been fixed. If you
like to do the Ian Currie grid thing, this will work brilliantly with
that. There's a great online tutorial class that goes with it. Nice
looking interface and some interesting numbers that other programs do
not generate, such as a viscosity index to help predict surface
gloss. Comes loaded with a database of New Zealand ingredients,
priced in NZ dollars (or at least it did). Not a great recipe storage
system, though.
GlazeMaster. A really good all round program that's easy to use and
does most things really well. Has a well thought out recipe storage
system. Going from recipe to formula takes some getting used to but
once you get it, it's pretty straightforward. We all know John's bias
against hazardous materials (or even materials that are speculated to
be hazardous), but I find it annoying that if you want lithium, barium
or lead in your database, you have to add them yourself.
HyperGlaze. Probably the best recipe storage system. Also probably
offers the most help and advice right on screen while you work, as
opposed to having it somewhere else in the program. I find the
HyperCard structure cumbersome and hard to go from recipe to formula
and back, and the fact that it matters what order you enter the
ingredients in bothers me. It's also hard to see more than one glaze
at a time, and this really limits the program's usefulness.
Insight. This one assumes the most knowledge on your part about both
glazes and computers. Tony has updated this many times, but in the
last few years, in my opinion, all the changes have been really
computer-geeky things that a studio potter would not care about. If
what you want to do is invent, compare, and modify recipes, this one
will work brilliantly, and the backup database is unbelievable. Not a
great recipe storage system, though.
Glaze Workbook. I'm not sure you can even still get this one now that
David Hewitt has died, but it is cumbersome and needlessly complicated
anyway. If you had Excel already, it was really cheap, and it
probably would have worked well for you if you were an Excel expert,
but I would not have recommended it for most people.
GlazeChem. This one I have only seen a few times and have never run
myself, but it seemed easy to use and understand, and a perfectly fine
program.
Which one do I go for when I have a problem or want to check out a
glaze recipe? Insight, because recipe-to-formula is really easy and I
like inventing and modifying recipes and I'm not much concerned about
storing a lot of recipes. And yes, it was the first one I got.
By the way, I think all of these are available in a trial version of
some sort. Some you can only see screen shot, some work but you can't
change anything, and some work completely but only for a while. So
check out their web sites.
Paul Lewing
www.paullewingtile.com
www.paullewingart.com
John Hesselberth on sun 16 aug 09
On Aug 15, 2009, at 11:44 PM, Paul Lewing wrote:
> but I find it annoying that if you want lithium, barium
> or lead in your database, you have to add them yourself.
Come now Paul. I see barium carbonate, lithium carbonate, petalite,
spodumene, and lepidolite in the materials database as shipped. But I
am guilty on leaving out lead compounds. It was a balance between
having a long materials list containing materials that hardly anyone
uses and a shorter list that meet 99% of potter's needs. I went for
the shorter list but still have some pretty uncommon stuff in there.
Regards.
John
John Hesselberth
www.frogpondpottery.com
"Man is a tool-using animal....without tools he is nothing, with tools
he is all" .... Thomas Carlyle
Lee Love on sun 16 aug 09
I am with Des, I like Glazechem. A lot of bang for the buck.
--
Lee Love, Minneapolis
"The tea ceremony bowl is the ceramic equivalent of a sonnet: a
small-scale, seemingly constricted form that challenges the artist to
go beyond mere technical virtuosity and find an approach that both
satisfies and transcends the conventions." -- Rob Sliberman
full essay: http://togeika.multiply.com/journal/item/273/
Eleanora Eden on sun 16 aug 09
Hi Paul and all,
I am a very happy Insight user. My only complaint is that there are only t=
wo columns to
work with. I need 3, one for the current recipe and two for comparisons o=
f trials. I have
asked Tony about this (haven't downloaded latest so if it is on there someb=
ody tell me)
in the past.
I went back last winter and carefully re-strategized the code system for my=
recipe files
so that when they come up I can see them in groups of what I would want to =
find. "Lots
of recipes" is subjective, of course, but I haven't run into that problem y=
et.
I did try GlazeMaster and the one thing I especially liked about it is the =
ease with which
you can use that program to make those Curry grids.
Best,
Eleanora
>
>Which one do I go for when I have a problem or want to check out a
>glaze recipe? Insight, because recipe-to-formula is really easy and I
>like inventing and modifying recipes and I'm not much concerned about
>storing a lot of recipes. And yes, it was the first one I got.
>By the way, I think all of these are available in a trial version of
>some sort. Some you can only see screen shot, some work but you can't
>change anything, and some work completely but only for a while. So
>check out their web sites.
>Paul Lewing
>www.paullewingtile.com
>www.paullewingart.com
--
Bellows Falls Vermont
www.eleanoraeden.com
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