ServiceNow Research

StarVector: Generating Scalable Vector Graphics Code from Images and Text

Abstract

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs) are vital for modern image rendering due to their scalability and versatility. Previous SVG generation methods have focused on curve-based vectorization, lacking semantic understanding, often producing artifacts, and struggling with SVG primitives beyond path curves. To address these issues, we introduce StarVector, a multimodal large language model for SVG generation. It performs image vectorization by understanding image semantics and using SVG primitives for compact, precise outputs. Unlike traditional methods, StarVector works directly in the SVG code space, leveraging visual understanding to apply accurate SVG primitives. To train StarVector, we create SVG-Stack, a diverse dataset of 2M samples that enables generalization across vectorization tasks and precise use of primitives like ellipses, polygons, and text. We address challenges in SVG evaluation, showing that pixel-based metrics like MSE fail to capture the unique qualities of vector graphics. We introduce SVG-Bench, a benchmark across 10 datasets, and 3 tasks: Image-to-SVG, Text-to-SVG generation, and diagram generation. Using this setup, StarVector achieves state-of-the-art performance, producing more compact and semantically rich SVGs.

Publication
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)
Juan A. Rodriguez
Juan A. Rodriguez
Visiting Researcher

Visiting Researcher at AI Frontier Research located at Montreal, QC, Canada.

Abhay Puri
Abhay Puri
Applied Research Scientist

Applied Research Scientist at AI Research Deployment​ located at Montreal, QC, Canada.

Issam H. Laradji
Issam H. Laradji
Research Manager

Research Manager at AI Frontier Research located at Vancouver, BC, Canada.

David Vazquez
David Vazquez
Director of AI Research

Director of AI Research at AI Research Management located at Montreal, QC, Canada.

Christopher Pal
Christopher Pal
Distinguished Scientist

Distinguished Scientist at AI Research Partnerships & Ecosystem​ located at Montreal, QC, Canada.