# MatPlotAgent: Method and Evaluation for LLM-Based Agentic Scientific Data Visualization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.11453 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.11453/

## Key facts

- Cited by 102 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal and embodied agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 29 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Feb 2024.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Multimodal and embodied agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/multimodal-and-embodied-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03300/) (2024)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06180/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12092/) (2021)
- [Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04761/) (2023)
- [Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03442/) (2023)
- [Code Llama: Open Foundation Models for Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12950/) (2023)
- [WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13854/) (2023)
- [ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16789/) (2023)
- [WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09332/) (2021)
- [CAMEL: Communicative Agents for "Mind" Exploration of Large Language Model Society](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17760/) (2023)
- [WebShop: Towards Scalable Real-World Web Interaction with Grounded Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.01206/) (2022)
- [Mind2Web: Towards a Generalist Agent for the Web](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.06070/) (2023)
- [DeepSeek-Coder: When the Large Language Model Meets Programming -- The Rise of Code Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14196/) (2024)
- [Teaching Large Language Models to Self-Debug](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05128/) (2023)
- [WizardCoder: Empowering Code Large Language Models with Evol-Instruct](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.08568/) (2023)
- [WizardMath: Empowering Mathematical Reasoning for Large Language Models via Reinforced Evol-Instruct](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09583/) (2023)
- [DS-1000: A Natural and Reliable Benchmark for Data Science Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11501/) (2022)
- [Llemma: An Open Language Model For Mathematics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.10631/) (2023)
- [Exploring Large Language Models for Communication Games: An Empirical Study on Werewolf](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.04658/) (2023)
- [SantaCoder: don't reach for the stars!](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.03988/) (2023)
- [OpenAgents: An Open Platform for Language Agents in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.10634/) (2023)
- [WebCPM: Interactive Web Search for Chinese Long-form Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06849/) (2023)
- [Is GPT-4 a Good Data Analyst?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15038/) (2023)
- [Data2Vis: Automatic Generation of Data Visualizations Using Sequence to Sequence Recurrent Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03126/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 102)

- [Agent-as-a-Judge: Evaluate Agents with Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10934/) (2024)
- [ScienceAgentBench: Toward Rigorous Assessment of Language Agents for Data-Driven Scientific Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.05080/) (2024)
- [Data Interpreter: An LLM Agent For Data Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.18679/) (2024)
- [ChartMimic: Evaluating LMM's Cross-Modal Reasoning Capability via Chart-to-Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09961/) (2024)
- [DeepAnalyze: Agentic Large Language Models for Autonomous Data Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.16872/) (2025)
- [Current state of LLM Risks and AI Guardrails](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12934/) (2024)
- [METAL: A Multi-Agent Framework for Chart Generation with Test-Time Scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17651/) (2025)
- [ChartEdit: How Far Are MLLMs From Automating Chart Analysis? Evaluating MLLMs' Capability via Chart Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.11935/) (2025)
- [A Survey of Data Agents: Emerging Paradigm or Overstated Hype?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.23587/) (2025)
- [PaperBanana: Automating Academic Illustration for AI Scientists](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.23265/) (2026)
- [Kolb-Based Experiential Learning for Generalist Agents with Human-Level Kaggle Data Science Performance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.03562/) (2024)
- [PyBench: Evaluating LLM Agent on various real-world coding tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.16732/) (2024)
- [TheoremExplainAgent: Towards Video-based Multimodal Explanations for LLM Theorem Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19400/) (2025)
- [Drawing Pandas: A Benchmark for LLMs in Generating Plotting Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02764/) (2024)
- [Large Language Model-based Data Science Agent: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02744/) (2025)
- [AutoFigure: Generating and Refining Publication-Ready Scientific Illustrations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03828/) (2026)
- [A Survey on Large Language Model-based Agents for Statistics and Data Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14222/) (2024)
- [Multimodal DeepResearcher: Generating Text-Chart Interleaved Reports From Scratch with Agentic Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02454/) (2025)
- [PlotGen: Multi-Agent LLM-based Scientific Data Visualization via Multimodal Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.00988/) (2025)
- [Effective Training Data Synthesis for Improving MLLM Chart Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06492/) (2025)
- [Breaking the SFT Plateau: Multimodal Structured Reinforcement Learning for Chart-to-Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13587/) (2025)
- [IGenBench: Benchmarking the Reliability of Text-to-Infographic Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.04498/) (2026)
- [ChartMaster: Advancing Chart-to-Code Generation with Real-World Charts and Chart Similarity Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.17608/) (2025)
- [CoDA: Agentic Systems for Collaborative Data Visualization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.03194/) (2025)
- [DSGym: A Holistic Framework for Evaluating and Training Data Science Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.16344/) (2026)
- [PoTable: Towards Systematic Thinking via Plan-then-Execute Stage Reasoning on Tables](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.04272/) (2024)
- [AutoFigure-Edit: Generating Editable Scientific Illustration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.06674/) (2026)
- [A Survey on Human-Centric LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14491/) (2024)
- [AstroVisBench: A Code Benchmark for Scientific Computing and Visualization in Astronomy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20538/) (2025)
- [Boosting Chart-to-Code Generation in MLLM via Dual Preference-Guided Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.02906/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Scientific data visualization plays a crucial role in research by enabling the direct display of complex information and assisting researchers in identifying implicit patterns. Despite its importance, the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) for scientific data visualization remains rather unexplored. In this study, we introduce MatPlotAgent, an efficient model-agnostic LLM agent framework designed to automate scientific data visualization tasks. Leveraging the capabilities of both code LLMs and multi-modal LLMs, MatPlotAgent consists of three core modules: query understanding, code generation with iterative debugging, and a visual feedback mechanism for error correction. To address the lack of benchmarks in this field, we present MatPlotBench, a high-quality benchmark consisting of 100 human-verified test cases. Additionally, we introduce a scoring approach that utilizes GPT-4V for automatic evaluation. Experimental results demonstrate that MatPlotAgent can improve the performance of various LLMs, including both commercial and open-source models. Furthermore, the proposed evaluation method shows a strong correlation with human-annotated scores.