Glossary
Asset
A 3D file or collection of files required to create a visual rendering of a customizable product. Ex: The asset uses occlusion maps to mimic dimples in the product’s surface.
A file, typically an image, stored in the cloud. Such assets are typically decorations referenced by recipe sets. Ex: The decoration URL value points to a stock art asset.
Back-end Renderer (BER)
A collection of APIs for rasterizing a 3D scene of a customized product into a 2D image.
Ex: The BER supports composite images containing multiple views of the customized product.
Category
A grouping of features and/or subcategories in a product. Categories form the basis of the navigation structure in a customizer user interface. Ex: The left sleeve category contains a color feature and a decoration feature.
A grouping of assets. Ex: The fish stock art asset belongs in the animal category.
Compound selection
A selection in a parent feature that triggers changes to selections in its child features. Compound selections are modeled in data as linked selections. However, the term compound selection is preferred to reflect its deterministic constraints.
Ex: The green-yellow-blue stripes selection sets the selection for stripe 1 to green, stripe 2 to yellow, and stripe 3 to blue.
Feature
A customizable part of a product containing a selection group and/or value objects.
Ex: The jacket decoration feature contains a stock art selection group and value objects for rotation, scale, and position transformations.
Feature Control
An object in a running customizer implementation that represents the current state of the user’s customization of that feature. A feature control also contains all the related data (such as localized messages) needed for an implementation developer to show that feature to a user.
Feature Selection Group
A model for side effects between features. Deprecated in favor of compound selections.
Ex: The feature selection groups contain an infinite loop: When the bottle trim color is black, then the cap color becomes red. When the cap color is red, the logo becomes white. When the logo is white, then the bottle trim color becomes red.
Spectrum Graphics
The term Spectrum Graphics refers to an optional platform feature for user customizable 2D graphics. It consists of APIs and libraries for defining layouts for images, text, and vector and bitmap graphics.
Ex: The basketball uniform has graphics containing team logos, player numbers, and player names in various possible arrangements including arched and circular text layouts.
Graphic Layout
A data structure in Spectrum Graphics defining the width and height of a graphic and containing graphic locations.
Ex: The graphic layout for the left panel of the espresso machine contains a mask to ensure the customized graphic output is not rendered beyond the printable area.
Graphic Layout Collection
A group of graphic layouts and output sizes for a customizable product.
Ex: The basketball jersey has a collection containing the layouts for the front and back graphics.
Graphic Location
Defines the placement of location presets.
Ex: The left panel location of the espresso machine.
Graphic Location Preset
A combination of graphic elements for a given location on a product including color fills, fonts and related data such as grading.
Ex: The graphic location preset for the front of the basketball jersey contains artwork and text for the team logo and name.
Graphic Location Preset Collection
Contains presets that are intended to be applied across multiple locations. A layout collection may contain multiple location preset collections.
Ex: When the user selects the polka dot location preset collection for the espresso machine, the colors they pick for the polka dots are applied to the left, right, and top panel locations simultaneously.
Handle
A human readable kebab-case string used to uniquely identify data across the Spectrum platform.
Ex: The body color feature’s handle is acme-fea-body-color.
Localized Message
Localized messages are objects that support internationalization (i18n). A localized message object contains a handle referenced by an entity (like a selection), a locale, and a plain text string written in that locale’s language. Internally, the locale tags adhere to IETF RFC 4646 (e.g. en-US). IETF locales can be mapped to proprietary ecommerce system locale tags as needed.
Ex: The fr-CA localized message for the red selection is "rouge".
Locked
A boolean flag indicating a read-only state of a recipe set. Recipe sets are always locked when they are shared on social media or added to the cart to prevent unwanted changes.
Ex: This unlocked recipe set was copied from a locked one so the user can make changes without affecting the original.
Product
A customizable product. Note: This may or may not correspond to an individual SKU depending on project requirements.
Ex: The product in the recipe set is acme-pro-helmet.
Product Group
A grouping of products for organizational purposes.
Ex: The new jersey is in the fall lineup product group.
Product Manifest
A data structure containing all the 3D assets and metadata needed to render a customizable product and defining their parameters.
Ex: The product manifest lazy-loads 3D geometry that’s not included in the default selections for this product.
Product Set
A grouping of separate products that can be customized and ordered together.
Ex: The product set contains a helmet and a jersey.
Readable ID
A short ID, typically for a recipe set, generated by the server. Unlike a UUID, the presence of a readable id on a recipe set indicates that it’s been saved.
Ex: The customer’s order refers to the recipe set readable ID 4H2MENA5.
Recipe
A recursive data structure containing features, selections and value objects representing a customized or personalized product.
Ex: The customer’s recipe has a cotton fabric selection.
Recipe Set
A recipe set contains a collection of recipes, typically from the same product set.
Ex: Recipe sets in this uniform customizer come with a jersey at minimum, but can optionally come with matching shorts and accessories.
Scene File
A JSON file that describes:
All the 3D assets required to render a product
Client-approved camera and lighting setup
Connections between 3D parameters and feature data
Ex: The scene file and UX requirements are both approved so we can set up the scene connections.
Selection
A customization of a feature constrained by a predefined set of options, typically implemented in a user interface with a dropdown menu or radio group.
Ex: Red is selection in a fabric’s color palette selection group.
Selection Group
A group of selections that can be reused across features.
Ex: A dye sublimated color palette selection group.
Specification
A recipe set formatted in such a way that it can be understood by a manufacturer in a packing slip or by a customer in an order confirmation email.
Ex: Send the recipe set specification to the manufacturer.
State
Typically used to match recipe sets to SKUs, a state is defined by a set of matching criteria.
Ex: This recipe matches the state corresponding to the SKU ACMESWEATSHIRT-BLUE.
Tag
One of any number of strings that can be assigned to features, selections, and other entities. Tags are often used to classify data as the basis for custom logic.
Ex: The synthetic fabric selections have a dye-sublimation tag.
Template
A type of selection that contains child features. Deprecated in favor of compound selections.
Ex: The Acme jacket body uses a template selection of acme-tem-camo, the child features of which are the colors within the camo pattern.
UUID
UUID stands for Universally Unique ID. UUIDs are typically assigned to recipes and recipes sets by the implementation front-end using the UUID version 4 algorithm specified in IETF RFC 4122. Alternatively called GUID (Globally Unique ID), particularly in Microsoft platforms.
Ex: 123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426655440000
Value Object
An object containing data for the customization or personalization of a feature such as:
User-supplied text for a printed, engraved, or stitched personalization
A URL pointing at a user-uploaded image
Decoration transformations like scale, rotation, and position
Ex: The decoration feature’s default rotation value is 0.
Value Type
One of a predefined set of strings indicating the expected contents of a value object.
Ex: BitmapURL
WebToPrint (W2P)
An API for generating high resolution print files from recipe sets.
Ex: Once we receive an order acknowledgement, we will start a W2P job for it.
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