Free Sketch to Diagram AI: Turn Hand Drawings into Scientific Figures

SciFig's sketch to diagram AI takes a rough drawing, such as a photo or scan of pencil, pen, or whiteboard work, and turns it into a clean scientific diagram. You upload the sketch, describe what each part represents, and the model uses your layout as a guide while replacing wobbly lines and handwriting with consistent shapes, arrows, and typeset labels. The result is an illustration of what you drew and described, not new data.

SciFig is free to start, no card required: 150 credits on day one (3 figures), daily check-in credits that grow with your streak (up to 150 a day) — up to about 44 figures in your first month. Invite a friend and you both get 200 more credits. Sketch-to-Figure comes with Starter and higher plans, which add all six image models and paid credits that never expire, with annual Starter at $100 a year ($8.33/month). Each sketch generation is priced at 50, 75 or 100 credits depending on the model. See the SciFig pricing page for current plans.

Upload a PNG, JPG, or WebP file up to 20 MB. Draw with a dark pen or a firmly pressed pencil, photograph the page straight on in even light, and crop away the desk, fingers, and neighboring notes. One diagram per upload works better than a full notebook page. Keep arrows clearly attached to their start and end points and leave space between labels, because a smudged or ambiguous stroke is exactly where a hand drawing to diagram AI has to guess.

State what the figure shows, then say what each shape, arrow, and label means. For example: nitrogen cycle; the cloud at the top is atmospheric nitrogen; the arrow down into the soil is nitrogen fixation; the arrow from ammonium to nitrate is nitrification. Type every handwritten label exactly as it should appear and say which elements must stay where you drew them. The clearer the description, the less the model infers from handwriting.

SciFig uses your sketch as the layout guide and your description for the exact label text, so the diagram follows the arrangement you drew. You can generate in sketch mode with any SciFig image model; if a result shifts an element or misreads a handwritten word, regenerate, try another model, or fix that spot with Region Redraw or a text edit in SciFig AI Illustration. Placing the result next to your original sketch is the quickest way to spot a moved arrow or label.

Yes. After generation the figure opens in SciFig AI Illustration, where you can keep refining it by chat, use Region Redraw to redraw a selected area, change text, and upscale to 2K or 4K. You can also convert it to editable SVG with Edit in Canvas, and export SVG, PNG, JPG or PPTX.

Yes. SciFig figures can be used in papers and grant proposals, and SciFig's free one-page publication license PDF covers publication and commercial use. Many journals ask authors to describe how a figure was prepared: SciFig DataChart (data-driven charts) uses AI to plan the chart and write plotting code, then Python calculates and plots from your data; SciFig FlowChart (flowcharts and diagrams) uses AI to create editable SVG diagrams; SciFig AI Illustration (AI scientific illustration) uses AI image generation. Your target journal's AI policy is a useful reference for wording that disclosure.