Sign Makers: Illustrator Plug-In For Making Signs Updated

August 16th, 2001 at 3:00 PM - News by Bryan Chaffin

New Ceres Solutions has released an update to NCS MagiSign to version 1.2. NCS MagiSign is a set of plug-ins for Illustrator 8.0 and 9.0 that is designed to allow sign makers to use Illustrator to design signs and output the designs for specialized plotters. The new version includes new features, and the company has also released a set of plug-ins for older versions of Illustrator for free. According to New Ceres Solutions:

New Ceres Solutions today announced the release 1.2 of NCS MagiSign, its collection of plug-inis for Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and 9.0, and that SignofNCS, its first collection of plug-inis for Adobe Illustrator, will now be available as a free download on its Web site). French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian language versions of SignofNCS will be available on CD-ROM at a nominal fee.

Considering the price, high quality and number of features offered by Adobe in its leading vector-based design software program, we considered it to be a nightmare for sign makers and screen printers to be forced to buy expensive dedicated sign software, in order to import and to cut designs created in standard products like Adobe Illustrator. This belief led us, in 1995, to develop SignofNCS, the first commercial plug-in for Adobe Illustrator to serve the professional sign making and screen printing market.

Thanks to its unique open architecture, SignofNCS was designed to integrate itself into Adobe Illustrator 5.0 to 7.0, thus allowing it to drive vinyl sign cutting plotters directly from the menu of their favorite design sofware. Unlike bridge software programs, SignofNCS also eliminates the need to export and to import data from one application to another. Instead, the designer need only select the paths to reproduce and send them directly to the plotter through the SignofNCS dialog.

Our innovative solution transformed the European sign market, then spread worldwide as we increased the number of compatible cutting plotters; hundreds of signmakers, screen printers and designers now use it daily as an essential tool. The most recent version, 3.0, is compatible with Adobe Illustrator 5.0 to 7.0 and drives approximately 300 cutting plotters models.

The latest release of NCS MagiSign includes NCS MagiSign Server, a utility to plot in the background or on a network.

We are also pleased to announce a wonderful offer to the community of sign makers, designers and screen printers:SignofNCS, our first collection of plug-ins, using Adobe Illustrator 5.0 to 7.0 on MacOS, is now available for free! Download and use them with our compliments, and then come back to New Ceres Solutions to take advantage of the even greater benefits of NCS MagiSign, which is compatible with Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and 9.0.

You can find more information on NCS MagiSign at the companyis Web site. The update is free to registered users, and the full version is priced at US$699.