NL4DV: Natural Language toolkit for Data Visualization

NL4DV takes a natural language query about a given dataset as input and outputs a structured JSON object containing:

• Data attributes,
• Analytic tasks, and
• Visualizations (Vega-Lite specifications)

With this output, developers can

• Create visualizations in Python using natural language, and/or
• Add a natural language interface to their existing visualization systems.

Setup Instructions, API Documentation, and Examples

These can all be found on NL4DV's project website.

Credits

Citations

2021 IEEE TVCG Journal Full Paper (Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE VIS Conference)

@article{narechania2021nl4dv,
  title = {{NL4DV}: A {Toolkit} for Generating {Analytic Specifications} for {Data Visualization} from {Natural Language} Queries},
  shorttitle = {{NL4DV}},
  author = {{Narechania}, Arpit and {Srinivasan}, Arjun and {Stasko}, John},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG)},
  doi = {10.1109/TVCG.2020.3030378},
  year = {2021},
  publisher = {IEEE}
}

2022 IEEE VIS Conference Short Paper Track

@inproceedings{mitra2022conversationalinteraction,
  title = {{Facilitating Conversational Interaction in Natural Language Interfaces for Visualization}},
  author = {{Mitra}, Rishab and {Narechania}, Arpit and {Endert}, Alex and {Stasko}, John},
  booktitle={2022 IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS)},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2207.00189},
  doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2207.00189},
  year = {2022},
  publisher = {IEEE}
}

2024 IEEE VIS NLVIZ workshop Paper

@misc{sah2024nl4dvllm,
    title={Generating Analytic Specifications for Data Visualization from Natural Language Queries using Large Language Models}, 
    author={{Sah}, Subham and {Mitra}, Rishab and {Narechania}, Arpit and {Endert}, Alex and {Stasko}, John and {Dou}, Wenwen},
    year={2024},
    eprint={2408.13391},
    archivePrefix={arXiv},
    primaryClass={cs.HC},
    url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.13391}, 
    howpublished={Presented at the NLVIZ Workshop, IEEE VIS 2024}
}

2025 IEEE VIS Poster

@misc{ji2025nl4dvstylist,
    title={{NL4DV-Stylist: Styling Data Visualizations Using Natural Language and Example Charts}},
    author={{Ji}, Tenghao and {Narechania}, Arpit},
    year={2025},
    url={osf.io/fs4en_v1},
    DOI={10.31219/osf.io/fs4en_v1},
    publisher={OSF Preprints},
    note={Presented as a poster at IEEE VIS 2025 (Poster Track)}
}

License

The software is available under the MIT License.

Contact

If you have any questions, feel free to open an issue or contact Arpit Narechania.