CE.SDK Renderer - CE.SDK Glossary

Definition

The CE.SDK Renderer is IMG.LY’s command-line tool for exporting CE.SDK designs on a Linux server. It takes a saved scene or scene archive and writes the export as a PDF, PNG, JPEG, or MP4 file. Inside is the same design engine as the editor, built as a native Linux program and shipped as a Docker container.

Because the export runs on server hardware, a long video or a large print file does not depend on what the user’s browser or phone can handle. An NVIDIA GPU speeds up exports, and the size of a scene is bounded by the server’s memory and GPU instead of by the limits of a single device.

How It Works

Step 01

Run the container

IMG.LY publishes the Renderer as Docker images. The license key is passed in as an environment variable, and on a server with an NVIDIA GPU the container is started with access to it.

Step 02

Point it at a scene

Each run takes one input file, a scene or a scene archive saved from CE.SDK, plus an output path when the default file name won’t do. The extension of the output file sets the format, and a page number picks which page of a multi-page design to render.

Step 03

Let it render

The Renderer loads the photos and clips the scene links to, takes the default asset library from the container or from a URL the team serves, then renders the design and writes the file. It can report its progress as JSON while it works, so a backend can show the user how far the export has come.

Step 04

Handle the result

A successful run exits with code zero. A failed one exits with an error code and a message, so a job queue can retry the export or flag it for a person to look at.

Connecting It to Your Backend

The Renderer runs from the command line, so a team wraps it in its own service. IMG.LY’s Express.js guide builds a container that adds a Node.js app on top of the Renderer image and exposes an HTTP endpoint for exports. When a template needs data before export, such as names, prices, or extra sizes, the same app loads the scene with the CE.SDK Node.js SDK, fills in the text variables, and hands the result to the Renderer.

The Export Using Renderer starter kit shows the browser side of this setup. The editor saves the scene as an archive, uploads it to the team’s renderer endpoint, and downloads the finished video while showing the user its progress.

Renderer or Node.js SDK

Both run the CE.SDK engine on a server. The Node.js SDK is a JavaScript library for editing scenes in code, which suits large batches of personalized designs and exports that run in the background while users keep designing. The Renderer is built for the export itself, using the server’s GPU and video codecs for complex graphics and video. The two work well together, and IMG.LY’s own guides prepare scenes with the Node.js SDK before exporting them with the Renderer.

Container Variants and Licensing

The Renderer comes as four container images. The images with open-source codecs are public and meant for evaluation, since those codecs carry no patent license for H.264, H.265, and AAC. For production, IMG.LY offers licensed codec images from its private registry. Both kinds come with the default assets bundled, which saves network requests during export, or without them for teams that serve their own asset library.

Designs are never uploaded to IMG.LY. For licensing, the Renderer reports export counts and sends periodic heartbeats that count active instances, and the license sets how many instances can run at the same time.

Use Cases

Print Files From Customer Designs

A web-to-print shop passes each finished order to the Renderer and gets back the PDF for production, rendered by the same engine the customer designed with.

Video Exports Off the User’s Device

A video edit in the browser hands long or 4K exports to a GPU server, so the user’s laptop stays free while the video renders.

Personalized Video

One video template turns into a separate clip for each customer, prepared on the server and exported by the Renderer without anyone opening an editor. One IMG.LY customer produces up to 100,000 versions of a single video ad this way.

Templated Media at Volume

A marketing platform fills a template with product data and renders every size and format a campaign needs, spread across several Renderer containers. For video, IMG.LY’s guide to automating video creation at scale covers template design and batch rendering.

Availability

IMG.LY recommends running the CE.SDK Renderer on an x86-64 server with Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS, at least 4 GiB of memory, and an NVIDIA GPU. Image exports also work without a GPU, only more slowly.