[NFB-Science] Accessing Figures in Scientific Papers

[campbell.rutherford15 at gmail.com]

Hello all,

I am about to begin my first summer research experience, which will mostly
involve computation and data analysis. One unanticipated problem that I
encountered was that of figures without alt text in scientific papers. Note
that these figures appear in PDFs that are otherwise accessible. I've been a
bit spoiled so far in college; if figures in the papers that I had to read
were not already accessible, one of my accommodations was for someone to
write descriptions for me that would include the necessary data. However, in
this research position, the resources to make this happen are not already in
place, and the scientists with whom I will be working and I are trying to
figure out how to best make figures in scientific papers accessible to me.

Has anyone had any luck with using gen AI or other technology to describe
figures? If so, what is your app/program of choice? Also, what is the best
way to produce figures from your own data? I have used Desmos for graphs of
functions and Excel for simple statistical graphs (line charts,
scatterplots, bar graphs, etc.). I also played with SAS Graphics Accelerator
a few years ago, and one of the scientists with whom I'll be working says
that he typically creates his figures using Python. What do you all think
works the best? Are there other methods for creating figures of which I
should be aware?

Thank you,

Campbell Rutherford