Figureor

Figureor is a framework designed to automate the creation of scientific figures from raw data, with an emphasis on reproducibility, consistency, and efficiency. It aims to streamline the process from data preparation to final figure output, reducing manual editing and enabling easy regeneration of figures as data changes.

Origin and naming: The name Figureor combines “figure” with the common software suffix or, signaling an automated agent for figure production. The concept appears in discussions about reproducible research and figure templating in the early 2020s, where researchers explored standardized templates and programmable workflows to improve consistency across publications.

Design and features: Figureor provides a specification language for figure templates, a data schema, and an execution engine that reads a configuration file and a dataset to render figures. It supports input formats such as CSV, TSV, and JSON, and outputs in SVG, PNG, and PDF. The system emphasizes version-controlled configurations, parameterized templates, and audit trails. It can integrate with notebook environments like Jupyter and Colab and with scripting languages such as Python and R. Built-in validation rules help catch missing data or mismatched units, and a library of common chart types supports a wide range of visualizations.

Applications and workflow: Users define a template that captures layout, style, and data mapping, then supply data and run Figureor to generate figures. It is used in research groups and publishing pipelines to produce multi-panel figures and to regenerate figures from updated data.

Limitations: As a niche tool, Figureor relies on community-maintained templates and clear data schemas. The learning curve can be non-trivial for users without prior templating experience, and the project remains largely a community-driven effort rather than a commercial product.