Rendering

Previews

Previews are static formats, available for File Types. 

• The standard windows server fonts are installed on our rendering server and will be applied and rendered to document previews. Any other fonts will be substituted.

• You see a file format icon when Picturepark couldn’t render a preview e.g. Indd for Indesign files.

• The original file is also available - accessing (download) the Original File can be restricted with Content Permissions. 

You cannot restrict Access/Download of previews, but it is possible that you add a watermark to Preview which is then also applied to other Formats and Thumbnails derived from the Preview. Check for formats and thumbnails if their rendering source is the Preview format to ensure that the Watermark is applied everywhere.   

Picturepark generates the following previews for supported file formats.

Dynamic Formats

Dynamic Formats can be defined for images only and are rendered on demand for the selected Content Item in Picturepark and not saved to the storage but only to a cache for the configured retention time. Dynamic formats may be Hero Images, Social Media Images, or Campaign Specials.

The benefits of dynamic rendering

• Those are customizable by the customer during operation (setup via API)

• Dynamic formats are cached (retention time configuration), so the downloader does not have to wait for frequently accessed content. 

• Picturepark does not store them on storage, saving money for the monthly storage subscription price. 

The drawback of dynamic rendering

• The download of multiple dynamic formats of the same Content Item is possible. 

• Rendering on request (lazy) may take some time until Picturepark generates the output. Picturepark will notify you when you can access the ready-to-download file.

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  You can continue working in Picturepark while waiting for your download to be ready. 

• Only available to produce images (rasterized files). 

• Costs performance of rendering microservice.  

Static Formats

Static formats are created on customer creation, predefined, and rendered for every Content Item in Picturepark, saved to the storage. The benefits of static formats

• No waiting times for downloading them. Picturepark creates the format after import and every user can then directly download it.   

• You can have static formats created for all file types (based on rendering support). 

The drawback of static formats

• Costs storage, as all formats are rendered and saved on the storage.

Rendering Chain

Example of a Rendering Chain for static formats, where Pictureprak, e.g., creates the thumbnails of an image based on the preview format.  The main benefit is that, e.g., watermarks of the Preview are automatically available on all thumbnails, except if you remove the watermark with a crop action.

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Choose Source Format for Rendering

Additional source considerations for choosing the source format: 

• The source must have sufficient quality to produce the desired format, e.g., you should not create a high-res print format from a small thumbnail. 

• To save resources, the source should match the output, so be of similar but a bit larger size and resolution. An original file may be huge, and producing a small thumbnail would waste rendering resources and take time. 

• For dynamic formats, a setting "view for all" is available. This setting will enable you to access the dynamic format without giving access to the source.  Therefore dynamic outputs rendered based on the source Original do not require "AccessOriginal permission." 

• The source can be temporary and not available for download or visible in Picturepark. 

Limitations for Picturepark rendering

• Picturepark reserves the right to change specifications for static formats at any time as announced per Picturepark release notes.

• Picturepark currently does not write XMP and EXIF information into the previews.

• You can repair formats via API, needed for formats that did not render correctly. Rendering failures appear when the rendering service is unavailable or rendering component updates. An automatic job runs every hour to re-render failed items a few times. Afterward, they will stay failed.  

• Document rendering requires Picturepark to know the font. Unknown fonts are not rendered correctly resulting in wrong previews. You can change the font in the document to fix the previews.

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