Excentro is small and simple tool that lets computer artist create Guilloche designs in comfortable environment of Macintosh computer.

Guilloches (bands of thin intertwining lines like ones you can see on banknotes) were traditionally used for security printing purposes as a protection against counterfeit and forgery. Beside this rather boring technical side Guilloches also add certain aesthetic value to documents, making them look “more serious or official”.

The main idea behind Excentro development was to let ordinary Macintosh computer artists to use Guilloches in wide range of jobs that might look better with these designs (for example: lottery tickets, certificates, diplomas, letterheads, etc.). You are not required to be certified banknote printer to use Excentro. We would like to see among Excentro users design bureaus that are not specialized on securities and freelance artists as well.

Excentro is a Guilloche generator only. You can use it to generate separate Guilloche designs. Other tasks like adding color effects, shape transformations and combining different designs on single layout should be performed in one of general purpose vector drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia FreeHand.

This section includes selected designs created by Excourse and other Excentro enthusiasts from all over the world. The purpose of this section is to let novice users to look at the designs created by experienced Excentro designers and to share your existing designs with other users. All designs found in this section could be used free of charge for any purpose.

If you got nice designs you want to share, please, send them to us at designs@excourse.com.

Sample 1:	Sample 2:
sample1.sit (Excentro source: 12 KB)	sample2.sit (Excentro source: 8 KB)
sample1.pdf (Final PDF: 632 KB)	sample2.pdf (Final PDF: 472 KB)

Sample 3:	Sample 4:
sample3.sit (Excentro source: 4 KB)	sample4.sit (Excentro source: 4 KB)
sample3.pdf (Final PDF: 192 KB)	sample4.pdf (Final PDF: 268 KB)

Excentro is a Carbonized Macintosh application. Excentro could be run either under Classic MacOS or under Mac OS X.

To run Excentro under Classic MacOS you will need:

• Macintosh computer capable of running MacOS version 9 (Apple PowerMacintosh or clone with PowerPC processor)
• MacOS version 9 or later with CarbonLib version 1.4 or later installed
• 40MB of RAM available for Excentro

To run Excentro under MacOS X you will need:

• Macintosh computer capable of running MacOS X (Apple PowerMacintosh with G3 processor)
• MacOS X version 10.1 or later

September 9, 2004
Version 1.5.4

• Document Colors List behavior is updated to reflect recent changes in documentation
• Some minor fixes and additions

October 29, 2003
Version 1.5.3

• Updated for MacOS X 10.3 compatibility

January 28, 2003
Version 1.5.2

• Added ‘Zap Document Undos’ command to ‘Edit’ menu. Now you can run in Demo mode forever, without a chance to ever exhaust your Mac's physical/virtual memory with Excentro's unlimited undos.

January 6, 2003
Version 1.5.1

• Added new element types: Brace, Spade, Notch

November 17, 2002
Version 1.5

• Fixed interface problems with MacOS X 10.2
• Added support for layers
• Added support for stroke color (including ColorSync™, support for spot colors and swatch palettes)

May 31, 2002
Version 1.4

• Carbonized version for MacOS X 10.1 or MacOS 8.6 with CarbonLib 1.4.
• Some fixes and additions

To download Excentro use links below:

Mac OS X:

excentro154.dmg (Version 1.5.4, 2.7 MB, Disk Image)

Details: This is Mac OS X disk image created with Disk Utility application. If you are using non-Macintosh computer to access internet resources, download this file ‘excentro154.dmg’ and transfer it to Macintosh with Mac OS X system.

Mac OS 9:

Excourse Excentro.smi (Version 1.5.4, 2.5 MB, MacBinary)

Details: This is self-mounting image created with Disk Copy application and encoded in MacBinary format. If you are using non-Macintosh computer to access internet resources, download this file ‘excentro154.bin’, transfer it Macintosh and use StuffIt Expander do decode it. You should get image file ‘Excourse Excentro.smi’ after decoding.

This is full working version of Excentro product. However, until you purchase the application and enter correct serial number (that will be sent to you via e-mail after purchase), Excentro works in Demo mode. The difference from registered version is that you can not save documents in native Excentro format. All other features including export in Adobe Illustrator format work without limitations. Demo mode allows you to explore Excentro features and/or use it for occasional jobs.

Beta:

excentro16b7.dmg (Version 1.6b7, 6.4 MB, Disk Image)

Details: This is the latest beta version of Excentro application that adds simple relief generation and stroke width modulation features. Short PDF documents with feature summaris are included.
Universal binary application (PowerPC and Intel code). Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or above.

To download full set of Excentro documentation books in PDF format use links below:

Excentro Windows Reference (PDF: 5 MB)

Excentro Commands Reference (PDF: 4.8 MB)

Excentro Objects Reference (PDF: 24.2 MB)

Using Excentro guide (PDF: 22.8 MB)

Excentro has the following pricing:

Excentro: 1 or more single user licenses (per user): $500

Excentro: Site license: $1000

A Site License covers all locations for your organization within a 160 kilometer radius of your site (100 miles). One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software.

Excourse uses Kagi payment service to accept international payments. Use link below to purchase Excentro online with credit card:

Excourse Online Order Page at Kagi

Please, do not forget to provide your correct e-mail address. When Kagi will notify us about your payment we will send you valid serial number by e-mail (allow another three days for this procedure).

By entering serial number in Register dialog displayed at application start up you will turn Demo into licensed version.

If you are interested in guilloche graphics then you probably already visited these sites. In case you did not, we hope you will find them of some interest:

1. Ron Wise's World Paper Money
   Huge collection of scanned banknotes from all over the world. Most images are of useless lo-res quality, but some can give you inspiration for future guilloche designs.
2. Stephen Vincent's Plug-in Page
   Indispensable plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator users. Take a look at Kimbo that allows you to cut, mirror and tile parts of artwork.
3. An article from ‘Harper's New Monthly Magazine No. CXL January, 1862’ about American Bank Note Company.
   Contains few pictures of ‘Geometrical Lathe’ they used for guilloche work.
4. Dotrix
   Belgian company that inherited Fortuna software (formerly BARCO Graphics). This professional security printing software also includes a module for traditional guilloche creation. This company was acquired by AGFA in January 2004.
5. Artist Mike - Certificate Designer
   Nice site with examples that show how the usage of standard Excentro Templates can produce professional looking certificate borders. Thanks Mike!

E-mail: info@excourse.com
Phone/Fax: +7 (495) 7256001
Mail address: Kursiv Publishers, P.O.Box Kursiv, Moscow 107140, Russia