FigExplorer: A System for Retrieval and Exploration of Figures from Collections of Research Articles

In this paper, we present FigExplorer, a novel general system that supports the retrieval and exploration of research article figures. Specifically, FigExplorer can support 1) figure retrieval using keyword queries, 2) exploration of related figures of a given figure, 3) exploration of a figure topic using the citation network, and 4) search result re-ranking using an example figure. The different functions were implemented using either classical IR models or neural network-based figure embeddings. Finally, the system was designed to facilitate the collection of user data for training and test purposes and it is flexible enough such that it can be extended to include new functions and algorithms. As an open-source system, FigExplorer can help advance the research, evaluation, and development of applications in this area.