Flowcharts are common tools for communicating processes but are often shared as static images that cannot be easily edited or reused. We present Flowchart2Mermaid, a lightweight web system that converts flowchart images into editable Mermaid.js code which is a markup language for visual workflows, using a detailed system prompt and vision-language models. The interface supports mixed-initiative refinement through inline text editing, drag-and-drop node insertion, and natural-language commands interpreted by an integrated AI assistant. Unlike prior image-to-diagram tools, our approach produces a structured, version-controllable textual representation that remains synchronized with the rendered diagram. We further introduce evaluation metrics to assess structural accuracy, flow correctness, syntax validity, and completeness across multiple models.
@article{arxiv.2512.02170,
title = {Flowchart2Mermaid: A Vision-Language Model Powered System for Converting Flowcharts into Editable Diagram Code},
author = {Pritam Deka and Barry Devereux},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.02170},
year = {2025}
}