A detailed guide to all features in Impact Plugin for Adobe® Illustrator®. This includes a comprehensive explanation of how to use them, why you would use them and all the options available.

Processing Impact PDFs

When a PDF document is opened by Illustrator, the plug-in determines whether it was produced by Impact, and with compatible export settings. In this case, the user will be presented with a dialog asking whether they wish to process the document accordingly.

It's possible to suppress this prompt and automatically process a compatible document as configured within the plug-in preferences.

When the plug-in processes the Impact PDF, it performs the following actions:

• Creates a top-level 'Impact Dieline' layer
• Creates a layer under the 'Impact Dieline' for each structural path located contained within the document based upon their associated spot colours/swatches names. Common examples include, 'Cut', 'Crease', 'Dimension'...
• Create a 'Graphics' layer, unless one already exists, and sets it as the active layer
• Locks the 'Impact Dieline' layer, and any sub-layers
• Converts the new layers representing the structural paths to Template layers to avoid unnecessary or accidental edits, as configured in the plug-in processing preferences.
• Resizes the Artboard to fit the extents of a matching layer, typically the Cut extents, as configured in the plug-in processing preferences.

Following the successful processing of an Impact PDF by the plug-in, if those changes are saved back to the original document, the plug-in will subsequently ignore it. If you chose not to initially process the file, but subsequently need to, opening the original document will offer this choice again.

The Live Link feature is only available within the Windows versions of Illustrator and this Plugin.

Live Link also simplifies the process of getting a structural design into Illustrator from which to create the artwork. A dedicated 'Open' button exports and opens the active drawing layer based on the currently viewed face, as a new PDF document. The PDF is then optionally processed to create the necessary layers. See Processing Impact PDFs for further details.

Workspace

The following two windows are introduced as part of this feature (as located within the Window > Arden Software > Impact CAD menu):

• Live Link - used to establish the connection to Impact and provides various synchronisation options

• Connection Status - Indicates the current status of the Illustrator <> Impact link (Connected/Disconnected/Waiting...), along with any errors or messages
• Active Layer - The currently active Impact layer, displayed in the following format ([ProjectName] - [LayerName] - [VisibleFace])
• Connect/Disconnect - Manual connection/disconnection.  If Impact is not running when clicking Connect, it will be started automatically
• Open -  Exports the active Impact layer to PDF and opens this document with Illustrator.  Note. This button is disabled if there is no active Impact connection, the active layer is already open, or the layer type is incompatible i.e. a 3D layer
• Update Impact - Saves the Illustrator document (where necessary) and sends the latest version of the artwork to the relevant Impact layer - the source 2D layer and any 3D layer which features the design
• Automatically update Impact on save - When enabled, the user no longer required to manually click 'Update Impact', instead each time the Illustrator document is saved, the latest version of the artwork is sent to Impact for preview
• Graphic Quality- The texture quality of artwork to be placed in updated Impact layers, both 2D and 3D
  • Low = Maximum of 1024 x 1024 pixels
  • Medium = Maximum of 2048 x 2048 pixels
  • High = Maximum of 4096 x 4096 pixels
  • Very High = Maximum of 8192 x 8192 pixels

• Impact Structural Design - displays drawing metadata from the currently active Impact document, where applicable

• Document Information - Read directly from the source PDF file to be displayed for Illustrator user for easy drawing recognition
• Design Extents - Calculated based on Illustrator's configured unit of measure

How to use Live Link

Before using Live Link for the first time, please ensure that the plug-in preferences configured and saved, which notably includes the Import/Export setting to be used when opening a new design in Illustrator, and the working directory location for the temporary files.

1. Click the 'Connect' button to establish a link to Impact. If Impact is not currently running, the plug-in will attempt to automatically start the registered version

2. Next, click 'Open'. If the plug-in is set up correctly, a copy of the current drawing layer will be exported from Impact and opened as the active document in Illustrator. Impact will need to be connected to a database and have a suitable drawing open with a compatible layer before a drawing can be opened from within Illustrator

3. Depending on the configured plug-in preferences, you may now be prompted to process the Impact PDF to create and lock the layers based on the spot colours encountered in the source drawing. It's possible to set up the plug-in to automatically apply this step, whether a document is manually exported from Impact or opened via the Live Link feature

4. Any existing graphics, already placed in the Impact layer, will be moved into a newly created 'Graphics' layer in the Illustrator document, though typically there would not any at this stage

5. Once you are ready to preview the artwork changes made against the structural design in Illustrator, simply click 'Update Impact' (forces Illustrator to first save the document), OR tick 'Automatically update Impact on save'. Note. The 'Update Impact' button and automatic update on save functionality, will be disabled unless the active Impact layer and visible face match those within the active Illustrator document

6. When artwork is sent to Impact, it will replace any graphics already present on the destination layer

7. To create artwork for another face (side) of the same design layer, simply change the viewed orientation within Impact which will then make the 'Open' button available again within the Live Link window

8. When graphics are sent to Impact, they will respect the 'Graphic Quality' setting currently selected. The option chosen (Low, Medium, High, Very High) will affect the speed of updates, as well as the visible quality of Impact 2D and 3D textures.  This single setting controls both the 2D graphic quality, equivalent to the Add Graphics quality selection, and also the 3D texture quality, equivalent to the Texture Quality option within the 3D Viewer tool. 

It is recommended that Impact drawings are saved before being opened with Live Link. This guarantees that the temporary documents will have unique names and should make it clearer which Impact drawing is being worked on when viewed from Illustrator.

Before initial use, it is advisable to review and configure the default preferences, which control the behaviour of the plug-in.

The Preferences dialog is found under the menu structure: Window > Arden Software > Impact CAD, along with access to the About information  - useful to understand which version you have installed.

The Impact CAD Preferences dialog provides the ability to control the functionality within the Plug-in:

• File Processing
  • Never prompt to process Impact PDFs - This suppresses the dialog asking the user if they want to process the document or not. See Processing Impact PDFs for further details. (Default is disabled)
  • Convert Impact Layers to Template Layers – This causes any generated Dieline layers to be turned into Template layers. This means that on export they will be made invisible and disabled. (Default is enabled)
  • Resize artboard to layers– This causes the artboard to resize on opening of an Impact PDF, it will resize to the extents of layers whose names contain the configured string (case-insensitive)
    • Resize to layers that match: (Default is Cut). This text box also becomes active with this option checked. (Default is enabled)
• Live Link
  • Automatically connect to Impact on start-up - Whether to attempt to locate and connect to Impact when Illustrator is first started. Preventing the user from having to manually click 'Connect'. (Default is disabled)
  • Export Master Tool Setting - Specify the PDF-enabled Import/Export Master Tool Setting (MTS) to use when the 'Open' button is clicked. Note, the full path to the setting must be specified, including its folder path, which may contain one or more '|' separator characters. Tip. To quickly locate the complete full name and path of an Import/Export MTS, within Impact simply right-click on a setting within > Options > Master Tool Settings and choose Copy, which will place the correctly formatted string on the Windows Clipboard
  • Working Directory- A temporary working directory on the local workstation which will be used to hold PDF documents passed between Impact and Illustrator. 
    • This working directory overrides any path configured within the Impact Import / Export Master Tool Setting (MTS) options.
    • The files created will automatically be named as [ProjectName] - [LayerName] - [FaceOrientation], e.g. 'P123456 - Header - Outside.pdf'.