According to a paper published on arxiv.org, researchers have developed Sketch2Simulation, an end-to-end multi-agent large language model system that converts process diagrams directly into executable Aspen HYSYS flowsheets. The framework addresses a major bottleneck in process systems engineering, where converting process sketches into simulation models traditionally required substantial manual effort and simulator-specific expertise.
The system decomposes the conversion task into three coordinated layers: diagram parsing and interpretation, simulation model synthesis, and multi-level validation, according to the paper. Specialized agents handle visual interpretation, graph-based intermediate representation construction, code generation for the HYSYS COM interface, execution, and structural verification.
According to arxiv.org, the researchers evaluated the framework on four chemical engineering case studies of increasing complexity, ranging from a simple desalting process to an industrial aromatic production flowsheet with multiple recycle loops. The system produced executable HYSYS models in all cases, achieving complete structural fidelity on the two simpler cases and strong performance on more complex ones, with connection consistency above 0.93 and stream consistency above 0.96.
The paper notes remaining challenges include dense recycle structures, implicit diagram semantics, and simulator-interface constraints. The research demonstrates what the authors describe as “a viable end-to-end sketch-to-simulation workflow” that bridges the gap between diagram-understanding methods and text-to-simulation workflows.