# GenGA: Editable and Data-Grounded Graphical Abstract Generation for Academic Papers

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.05478 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.05478/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 13 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08718/) (2021)
- [The AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06292/) (2024)
- [StarVector: Generating Scalable Vector Graphics Code from Images and Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11556/) (2023)
- [AutomaTikZ: Text-Guided Synthesis of Scientific Vector Graphics with TikZ](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.00367/) (2023)
- [OmniSVG: A Unified Scalable Vector Graphics Generation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.06263/) (2025)
- [Paper2Poster: Towards Multimodal Poster Automation from Scientific Papers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21497/) (2025)
- [From Words to Structured Visuals: A Benchmark and Framework for Text-to-Diagram Generation and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.11916/) (2024)
- [AutoFigure: Generating and Refining Publication-Ready Scientific Illustrations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03828/) (2026)
- [LayerD: Decomposing Raster Graphic Designs into Layers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25134/) (2025)
- [FigGen: Text to Scientific Figure Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00800/) (2023)
- [AutoFigure-Edit: Generating Editable Scientific Illustration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.06674/) (2026)
- [OverleafCopilot: Empowering Academic Writing in Overleaf with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09733/) (2024)
- [SciGA: A Comprehensive Dataset for Designing Graphical Abstracts in Academic Papers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02212/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Graphical Abstracts (GAs) visually summarize the key findings of academic papers, playing a crucial role in facilitating the understanding of research content. Recently, advancements in vision-language models and image generation models have enabled the automatic generation of scientific figures based on paper content. However, most conventional methods output the generated results as raster graphics, making post-editing (e.g., text modification and layout changes) highly difficult. This poses a significant challenge, as they are unsuitable for the iterative figure revision process inherent in paper writing and peer review. To tackle these challenges, we define the novel task of generating editable GAs from paper content and propose GenGA, a new GA generation framework that directly produces figures in vector format. By generating figures as a collection of vector elements with a hierarchical structure, GenGA produces outputs that can be seamlessly imported into existing drawing tools for intuitive, element-level editing. Furthermore, we introduce the Structural Independence Coefficient (SIC), a metric that quantifies the editing simplicity of a figure based on the degree to which local modifications propagate to other elements. Experimental results show that GenGA achieves superior editing simplicity compared to conventional methods, and even surpasses human-authored GAs in conciseness and semantic alignment. We also validate SIC as an effective metric correlated with manual editing costs. This study fundamentally redefines GA generation as an editable vector graphic generation problem grounded in the practical workflows of researchers, significantly promoting effective scientific communication.
