Toward Reliable Scientific Visualization Pipeline Construction with Structure-Aware Retrieval-Augmented LLMs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhao, Guanghui, Wang, Zhe, Dong, Yu, Li, Guan, Shan, GuiHua
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Zhao, Guanghui
Wang, Zhe
Dong, Yu
Li, Guan
Shan, GuiHua
author_facet Zhao, Guanghui
Wang, Zhe
Dong, Yu
Li, Guan
Shan, GuiHua
contents Scientific visualization pipelines encode domain-specific procedural knowledge with strict execution dependencies, making their construction sensitive to missing stages, incorrect operator usage, or improper ordering. Thus, generating executable scientific visualization pipelines from natural-language descriptions remains challenging for large language models, particularly in web-based environments where visualization authoring relies on explicit code-level pipeline assembly. In this work, we investigate the reliability of LLM-based scientific visualization pipeline generation, focusing on vtk.js as a representative web-based visualization library. We propose a structure-aware retrieval-augmented generation workflow that provides pipeline-aligned vtk.js code examples as contextual guidance, supporting correct module selection, parameter configuration, and execution order. We evaluate the proposed workflow across multiple multi-stage scientific visualization tasks and LLMs, measuring reliability in terms of pipeline executability and human correction effort. To this end, we introduce correction cost as metric for the amount of manual intervention required to obtain a valid pipeline. Our results show that structured, domain-specific context substantially improves pipeline executability and reduces correction cost. We additionally provide an interactive analysis interface to support human-in-the-loop inspection and systematic evaluation of generated visualization pipelines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_16057
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Toward Reliable Scientific Visualization Pipeline Construction with Structure-Aware Retrieval-Augmented LLMs
Zhao, Guanghui
Wang, Zhe
Dong, Yu
Li, Guan
Shan, GuiHua
Graphics
Human-Computer Interaction
Software Engineering
Scientific visualization pipelines encode domain-specific procedural knowledge with strict execution dependencies, making their construction sensitive to missing stages, incorrect operator usage, or improper ordering. Thus, generating executable scientific visualization pipelines from natural-language descriptions remains challenging for large language models, particularly in web-based environments where visualization authoring relies on explicit code-level pipeline assembly. In this work, we investigate the reliability of LLM-based scientific visualization pipeline generation, focusing on vtk.js as a representative web-based visualization library. We propose a structure-aware retrieval-augmented generation workflow that provides pipeline-aligned vtk.js code examples as contextual guidance, supporting correct module selection, parameter configuration, and execution order. We evaluate the proposed workflow across multiple multi-stage scientific visualization tasks and LLMs, measuring reliability in terms of pipeline executability and human correction effort. To this end, we introduce correction cost as metric for the amount of manual intervention required to obtain a valid pipeline. Our results show that structured, domain-specific context substantially improves pipeline executability and reduces correction cost. We additionally provide an interactive analysis interface to support human-in-the-loop inspection and systematic evaluation of generated visualization pipelines.
title Toward Reliable Scientific Visualization Pipeline Construction with Structure-Aware Retrieval-Augmented LLMs
topic Graphics
Human-Computer Interaction
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16057