ImageGear and its associated components are completely thread-safe. The implementation of thread safety in ImageGear maximizes the performance of threaded applications on multi-CPU computers. Every ImageGear API function can be executed within a thread.

Five thread safety APIs are explained in detail in the Core Component API Function Reference.

• IG_thread_data_ID_associate() provides thread customized ImageGear settings.
• IG_thread_data_ID_get() provides thread customized ImageGear settings.
• IG_thread_local_data_cleanup() provides thread customized ImageGear settings.
• IG_thread_image_lock() is required in the situation where several threads are accessing the same HIGEAR concurrently AND at least one of these threads performs an operation that modifies/deletes HIGEAR.
• IG_thread_image_unlock() is required in the situation where several threads are accessing the same HIGEAR concurrently AND at least one of these threads performs an operation that modifies/deletes HIGEAR.

In most cases, no additional API calls are required to achieve thread safety.

The global group of ART settings cannot be used in multi-threaded application. You have to use this function to associate a new local group of settings for each new thread. For more detailed information, see the example code for IG_thread_data_ID_associate().  Access to the same PDF document from multiple threads is not permitted, because multiple threads cannot share Adobe PDF Library data types. PDF docs created/opened in the main thread can be only used from the main thread.