New approaches to fast plate composition, with a software implementation for taxonomy

Abstract

The preparation of multi-panel figures remains a labor-intensive step in scientific publication, particularly in image-intensive fields such as zoological taxonomy. Although many tools are available, they are generally either general-purpose applications or highly specialized solutions that may be difficult to install or time-consuming to learn. Here, new approaches are proposed to simplify and formalize multi-panel figure composition, emphasizing rapid layout construction and experimentation while maintaining explicit control over publication parameters. These include spatial inference of intended layouts from the distribution of images on a canvas, editable formulas for representing and modifying layout structure, integrated operations for image arrangement and transformation, and automated procedures for figure numbering, scale-bar calculation, and legend generation. The approaches are implemented and can be tested in Griphus, a standalone graphical application developed for taxonomists. User-defined parameters such as target print dimensions, resolution, spacing, and color mode are maintained throughout the work, while layouts can be interactively constructed, modified, rotated, and regenerated. The resulting composite figure is accompanied by a readable representation of its layout structure and a .gri session file storing images, transformations, and parameters for exact regeneration. Griphus thus provides a practical implementation of the proposed approaches and a complementary environment to professional image-editing software for efficient, reproducible, and exploratory construction of publication-quality multi-panel figures.