sketch2fig

Convert figure screenshots and sketches into publication-quality TikZ code using Claude.

Input PNG → Plan → Generate TikZ → Compile → Evaluate → Refine → Output .tex + .png
                                        ↑                     │
                                        └──── targeted edits ─┘

Demo

Schedule diagram — passes on the first try

Input	Output

Pipeline with curves and shading — 5 refinement iterations

Input	Iteration 1	Final

Getting Started

Requirements: Python 3.12+, uv, TeX Live with pdflatex, poppler, Anthropic API key.

# macOS
brew install --cask basictex && brew install poppler

# Ubuntu/Debian
apt-get install texlive-pictures texlive-latex-extra poppler-utils

git clone https://github.com/yourname/sketch2fig
cd sketch2fig
uv sync
echo "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-..." > .env
uv run sketch2fig convert your_figure.png

Output lands in output/<name>/final.tex and final.png.

Try it on a bundled example:

uv run sketch2fig convert tests/fixtures/real_examples/4_schedule.png --verbose

Options

Flag	Description
--clean	Aesthetic cleanup — improve alignment even if input is rough
--max-iters N	Max refinement iterations (default: 5)
--output-dir PATH	Custom output directory
--verbose	Show plan summary, per-iteration scores, and evaluator critique

How It Works

1. Plan — Claude analyzes the figure: element types, layout, connections, color semantics
2. Generate — Claude writes a tikzpicture from the plan, using the original image for detail
3. Compile — pdflatex compiles the code; on failure Claude auto-fixes errors (up to 3 retries)
4. Evaluate — The rendered PNG is scored against the input on completeness, structure, text, and aesthetics
5. Refine — Below threshold, Claude makes targeted edits and re-compiles (up to 5 iterations)

All figure understanding and code generation use Claude's vision capabilities via the Anthropic API.