Glossary

Key terms and concepts used across CE.SDK and creative automation workflows.

Showing 72 of 72 terms

Core Concepts

CreativeEngine

The cross-platform C++ engine powering all scene rendering and manipulation across every IMG.LY SDK.

Scene

The root-level document that contains all pages and design elements in a CE.SDK project.

Block

The fundamental building unit of every scene: every element, from images to text to pages, is a block.

Page

A canvas within a scene on which design elements are placed, supporting multi-page layouts.

Headless Mode

Running the CreativeEngine as a pure API with no UI, used for server-side automation and batch rendering.

Design Unit

The measurement system (Pixel, Millimeter, or Inch) used for all dimensions and positions in a scene.

UUID

A stable, persistent identifier assigned to each block that survives save and load operations.

Architecture

Block Hierarchy

The parent–child tree structure that organizes all blocks in a CE.SDK scene from the root down to individual elements.

Block Type

A string identifier that defines what a block fundamentally is and which APIs it supports.

Block Kind

A custom semantic label assigned to a block to distinguish it from other blocks of the same type.

Graphic Block

The unified block type for all visual content: images, videos, shapes, and stickers.

Fill

The content layer inside a graphic block, defining what is rendered: an image, video, color, or gradient.

Shape

The geometric boundary that defines a graphic block's outline and clips its fill.

Scope

A named permission that controls whether a specific editing operation is allowed on a block or editor-wide.

Effects

Visual processing layers (filters, adjustments, blur, shadow) applied on top of a block's fill.

Outline / Stroke

A configurable decorative border drawn around a block's shape boundary.

Templates & Automation

Template

A pre-designed scene with locked and editable elements, used as a reusable starting point for human editing or automated generation.

Placeholder

A block configured as a drop-zone where Adopter-role users can swap image, video, or text content.

Text Variable

A named dynamic token in a text block whose value is set programmatically to personalize designs at scale.

Design Constraint

A per-block permission restriction set by a Creator that limits what Adopter-role users can modify.

Creative Automation

Using CE.SDK's headless API to generate large volumes of design assets from templates and data, without manual editing.

Variable Data Printing

A print workflow where CE.SDK generates one personalized, print-ready file per record from a shared template and data source.

Scene File

The native .scene format that saves a complete CE.SDK design including all blocks, properties, and metadata.

Scene Archive

A .zip bundle of a scene file and all its referenced assets, ensuring the template is fully portable.

Roles & Permissions

Role

A user type (Creator, Adopter, Viewer, Presenter) that sets the default permission level and editor experience.

Creator Role

The unrestricted role for designers who build templates and define what end-users can edit.

Adopter Role

The restricted role for end-users who personalize templates within the limits a Creator has set.

Viewer Role

A read-only role for previewing designs without any editing capability.

Presenter Role

A read-only role optimized for presenting designs in full-screen or slideshow mode.

Starter Kit UIs

Starter Kit

A pre-configured, production-ready CE.SDK setup for a specific use case, ready to embed and customize.

Design Editor

CE.SDK's full-featured multi-page design creation UI, suited for templates, marketing materials, and brand tools.

Photo Editor

A focused CE.SDK configuration for single-image editing: adjustments, filters, crop, and background removal.

Video Editor

A timeline-based CE.SDK configuration for composing, trimming, and exporting video content.

AI Editor

A CE.SDK configuration that surfaces generative AI tools for image, video, text, and voice creation alongside standard design editing.

T-Shirt Designer

A CE.SDK Starter Kit for apparel customization with a realistic mockup, enforced print boundaries, and print-ready output.

Postcard Editor

A guided CE.SDK Starter Kit for creating and personalizing postcards and greeting cards, with variable-driven batch output.

Photobook Editor

A CE.SDK Starter Kit for building multi-page photobooks with guided layouts and photo asset management.

Mockup Editor

A CE.SDK Starter Kit that maps a finished design onto photorealistic product surfaces for live preview and validation.

3D Product Configurator

A CE.SDK Starter Kit that renders designs onto interactive, rotatable 3D product models in real time.

Design Generator

A CE.SDK Starter Kit that auto-produces a finished design from structured inputs, with no manual canvas editing required.

Automated Video Generator

A CE.SDK Starter Kit for producing video outputs from templates and data entirely through the headless API.

Auto-Resizer

A CE.SDK Starter Kit that automatically adapts designs to multiple target formats and page sizes in one operation.

Data Merge

A CE.SDK Starter Kit for generating a batch of personalized assets by injecting rows of data into a single template.

Multiple Image Generator

A CE.SDK Starter Kit for producing multiple platform-specific image variants from a single data input.

Design Viewer

A lightweight CE.SDK Starter Kit for rendering a read-only, navigable preview of a design scene.

Platform Notes

An overview of which Starter Kits are available across web frameworks, mobile, desktop, and server platforms.

UI Components

Canvas

The primary workspace where users view and interact with the design in real time.

Dock

The panel providing access to asset libraries and tools not tied to a currently selected block.

Inspector Bar

The contextual properties panel that adapts to show controls for the currently selected block.

Navigation Bar

The global toolbar for scene-wide actions: undo, redo, and zoom.

Canvas Bar

A toolbar for managing overall page structure, including adding and reordering pages.

Canvas Menu

A contextual action menu appearing on block selection for quick operations like duplicate and delete.

Layer Panel

A panel showing the full stacking order of blocks, with controls for reordering and toggling visibility.

Theming

CE.SDK's system for customizing the editor's visual appearance to match a host application's brand.

Asset Management

Asset Source

A data provider that supplies assets (images, fonts, templates, stickers) to the CE.SDK asset library.

Asset Library

The browsable, searchable collection of assets available to users inside the editor, drawn from one or more asset sources.

URI Resolver

A developer-defined function that maps CE.SDK asset URIs to actual resource URLs at runtime.

Plugin

A modular extension that adds new capabilities (processing, UI components, or asset sources) to a CE.SDK integration.

Export & Output

Export

The process of rendering a CE.SDK scene or page to a distribution-ready file: PNG, JPEG, PDF, PDF/X, MP4, and more.

PDF/X

An ISO-standardized PDF subset that guarantees print-accurate, press-ready output with embedded fonts and color profiles.

CMYK

The ink-based color model used in professional print production, supported by CE.SDK for print-accurate design and export.

Spot Color

A precisely defined Pantone ink color used in print for exact brand color reproduction, supported alongside CMYK in CE.SDK.

Bleed / Cutout

Print bleed support and the Cutout Plugin for creating die-cut shapes and print-safe trim boundaries in CE.SDK.

Video

Timeline

The time-based editing interface for sequencing, trimming, and synchronizing all media elements in a video composition.

Video Composition

A CE.SDK scene built for video output, combining clips, audio, overlays, and animations on a timeline.

Video Collage

A layout where multiple video clips play simultaneously on one canvas in split-screen or grid arrangements.

Caption

A timeline-synchronized text overlay for adding subtitles or on-screen text in video compositions.

Keyframe

A defined property state at a specific timestamp, used to create smooth animations and motion transitions.

AI & Plugins

Agent Skills

Bundled CE.SDK documentation and code patterns that enable AI coding assistants to scaffold integrations autonomously.

Background Removal Plugin

A client-side CE.SDK plugin that removes image backgrounds in the browser with no server upload required.

Vectorizer Plugin

A CE.SDK plugin that converts raster images to scalable SVG vector graphics, directly in the browser.

LUT

A color mapping file applied as a filter effect in CE.SDK to grade the look of images and videos consistently.