"""Extract embedded images from PDFs, describe them, and inject the descriptions inline into the parser's markdown. When the operator passes ``use_vision_llm=True`` for a PDF, the document parsers (DOCLING / LLAMACLOUD / Azure DI / UNSTRUCTURED) extract text but mostly drop the actual image content -- a CT scan inside a clinical PDF becomes (at best) a ```` placeholder in the markdown, and the caption text below it. This module fills that gap. After the document parser produces markdown text, we: 1. Walk the original PDF with :mod:`pypdf`, pulling out each embedded image (deduped by sha256, size-capped to match the vision LLM's own limits). 2. Run the vision LLM on each unique image (visual description) and, in parallel when an OCR runner is provided, re-feed the same image through the ETL service for per-image OCR. 3. **Inject** a horizontal-rule-delimited markdown section -- with named "OCR text" and "Visual description" sub-sections -- where the image actually appears in the parser's markdown. Two splice modes, chosen by which marker the parser emitted: - **Replace** Docling-style ```` placeholders (and an optional ``Image: `` caption line). The placeholder carries no useful content of its own, so we substitute our block for it. - **Append after** layout-aware ``
...
`` blocks (Azure DI ``prebuilt-layout``, LlamaCloud premium). Those blocks already contain parser-extracted chart values / OCR'd labels / captions, which are themselves useful for retrieval -- so we PRESERVE the figure verbatim and add our vision-LLM block immediately after it. The chunk then contains both the parser's structured numbers AND the VLM's semantic interpretation. Either way, the image content stays in context with the surrounding document body rather than getting orphaned at the end -- crucial for retrieval, where a single chunk should contain the question, the image content, and the answer options together. If no placeholders, figures, or captions can be matched (e.g. an unusual parser output), we fall back to appending an ``## Image Content`` section so no image content is silently lost. """ from __future__ import annotations import asyncio import contextlib import hashlib import logging import re import tempfile from collections.abc import Awaitable, Callable from dataclasses import dataclass, field from pathlib import Path from typing import Any # Type alias for the OCR callback. Takes (file_path, filename), returns # the OCR'd markdown text -- or empty string if no text was found, or # raises if OCR failed unrecoverably (which the describer catches and # treats as "no OCR for this image" rather than failing the whole doc). OcrRunner = Callable[[str, str], Awaitable[str]] logger = logging.getLogger(__name__) # Bound how many vision LLM calls we make in parallel for a single # document. Vision models are typically rate-limited; 4 concurrent # calls is a safe default that respects most provider limits while # keeping wall-clock manageable for image-heavy PDFs. _VISION_CONCURRENCY = 4 # Match parse_with_vision_llm's per-image cap so we don't even attempt # images that the vision LLM would reject anyway (Anthropic's 5 MB # limit is the most restrictive among the major providers). _MAX_IMAGE_BYTES = 5 * 1024 * 1024 # Skip degenerate images: tracking pixels, very small decorative dots, # scanner-introduced artefacts. We can't cheaply check pixel dimensions # without decoding the image, so we approximate: anything under 1 KB is # almost certainly not informative content. _MIN_IMAGE_BYTES = 1024 @dataclass class PictureDescription: """A single extracted image with its visual description and (optionally) OCR. Two content fields by design, each produced by the *right* tool: - ``description``: the vision LLM's visual interpretation. What the image depicts (anatomy, charts, layout, etc.) -- the semantic content that only a vision model can produce. - ``ocr_text``: text-in-image extracted by re-feeding the image through the configured ETL service (Docling/Azure DI/LlamaCloud) *as if it were a standalone image upload*. Specialist OCR engine, per-image attribution, no vision LLM tokens spent on text. None when no OCR was requested or OCR found no text. """ page_number: int # 1-indexed ordinal_in_page: int # 0-indexed within the page name: str # name pypdf assigned (e.g. "Im0") sha256: str # hash of the raw image bytes description: str # visual description (markdown) ocr_text: str | None = None # OCR text from the ETL service, if any @dataclass class PictureExtractionResult: """Aggregate result of extracting all pictures from a document.""" descriptions: list[PictureDescription] = field(default_factory=list) skipped_too_small: int = 0 skipped_too_large: int = 0 skipped_duplicate: int = 0 failed: int = 0 @property def has_content(self) -> bool: return bool(self.descriptions) def _is_pdf(filename: str) -> bool: return filename.lower().endswith(".pdf") def _pick_suffix(name: str) -> str: lower = name.lower() for ext in (".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".gif", ".bmp", ".tiff", ".tif", ".webp"): if lower.endswith(ext): return ".jpeg" if ext == ".jpg" else ext return ".png" def _extract_pdf_images(file_path: str) -> list[tuple[int, int, str, bytes]]: """Pull every embedded image out of a PDF. Returns ``(page_number_1_indexed, ordinal_in_page, name, bytes)``. Per-page and per-image failures are logged and skipped -- one bad image must not fail the whole document. """ from pypdf import PdfReader out: list[tuple[int, int, str, bytes]] = [] try: reader = PdfReader(file_path) except Exception: logger.warning( "pypdf failed to open %s for image extraction", file_path, exc_info=True, ) return out for page_idx, page in enumerate(reader.pages): try: images = list(page.images) except Exception: logger.warning( "pypdf failed to enumerate images on page %d of %s", page_idx + 1, file_path, exc_info=True, ) continue for img_idx, img in enumerate(images): try: name = getattr(img, "name", None) or f"page{page_idx + 1}_img{img_idx}" data = img.data except Exception: logger.warning( "pypdf failed to read image %d on page %d of %s", img_idx, page_idx + 1, file_path, exc_info=True, ) continue out.append((page_idx + 1, img_idx, name, data)) return out async def _describe_one( page_number: int, ordinal: int, name: str, sha256: str, data: bytes, vision_llm: Any, semaphore: asyncio.Semaphore, ocr_runner: OcrRunner | None, ) -> PictureDescription | None: from app.etl_pipeline.parsers.vision_llm import parse_image_for_description suffix = _pick_suffix(name) # NamedTemporaryFile + delete=False because the vision-LLM helper # and the OCR runner each open the path themselves; we clean up in # the finally. Same temp file feeds both, which is correct: vision # LLM and OCR are looking at the same image, just asking different # questions of it. with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix=suffix, delete=False) as tmp: tmp.write(data) tmp_path = tmp.name try: async with semaphore: tasks: list[Awaitable[Any]] = [ parse_image_for_description(tmp_path, name, vision_llm), ] if ocr_runner is not None: tasks.append(ocr_runner(tmp_path, name)) # return_exceptions=True so a failure in one branch (most # often OCR) doesn't poison the other. results = await asyncio.gather(*tasks, return_exceptions=True) description_result = results[0] if isinstance(description_result, BaseException): logger.warning( "Vision LLM failed for image %s on page %d, skipping", name, page_number, exc_info=description_result, ) return None description = str(description_result) ocr_text: str | None = None if ocr_runner is not None and len(results) > 1: ocr_result = results[1] if isinstance(ocr_result, BaseException): logger.warning( "Per-image OCR failed for image %s on page %d, " "omitting OCR field for this image", name, page_number, exc_info=ocr_result, ) else: stripped = str(ocr_result).strip() # Empty OCR (or whitespace-only) means the OCR engine # found no text in this image. Record that as None so # the rendered block doesn't include a useless empty tag. ocr_text = stripped or None finally: with contextlib.suppress(OSError): Path(tmp_path).unlink() return PictureDescription( page_number=page_number, ordinal_in_page=ordinal, name=name, sha256=sha256, description=description, ocr_text=ocr_text, ) async def describe_pictures( file_path: str, filename: str, vision_llm: Any, *, ocr_runner: OcrRunner | None = None, ) -> PictureExtractionResult: """Extract embedded images from a document and describe each via vision LLM. When ``ocr_runner`` is provided, each image is also passed to it (in parallel with the vision LLM) and the returned text is recorded in :attr:`PictureDescription.ocr_text`. The runner is typically a closure over a vision-LLM-less ``EtlPipelineService`` -- this lets the same OCR engine that processes standalone image uploads (Docling/Azure DI/LlamaCloud) also process embedded-in-PDF images, giving per-image OCR attribution alongside the page-level OCR that the parser already does. Currently PDF-only. For non-PDF documents this returns an empty result and the caller should leave the parser's markdown untouched. """ result = PictureExtractionResult() if not _is_pdf(filename) or vision_llm is None: return result raw_images = _extract_pdf_images(file_path) if not raw_images: return result seen_hashes: set[str] = set() eligible: list[tuple[int, int, str, str, bytes]] = [] for page_number, ordinal, name, data in raw_images: if len(data) > _MAX_IMAGE_BYTES: result.skipped_too_large += 1 continue if len(data) < _MIN_IMAGE_BYTES: result.skipped_too_small += 1 continue sha = hashlib.sha256(data).hexdigest() if sha in seen_hashes: result.skipped_duplicate += 1 continue seen_hashes.add(sha) eligible.append((page_number, ordinal, name, sha, data)) if not eligible: return result semaphore = asyncio.Semaphore(_VISION_CONCURRENCY) tasks = [ _describe_one(p, o, n, sha, d, vision_llm, semaphore, ocr_runner) for (p, o, n, sha, d) in eligible ] descriptions = await asyncio.gather(*tasks) for desc in descriptions: if desc is None: result.failed += 1 else: result.descriptions.append(desc) return result # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Rendering: build the per-image markdown block + inject inline. # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- def _format_image_block( name: str, description: str, ocr_text: str | None = None, ) -> str: """Render the per-image block as a horizontal-rule-delimited section. Why no blockquote / no raw HTML / no XML? ----------------------------------------- We tried each in turn and each failed in the document viewer: - **Raw HTML / XML** (``...``): unknown elements have no render rules in Streamdown or PlateJS, so the content survives in the markdown source but is invisible to humans. - **Blockquote with nested blocks**: nested fenced code blocks, bullet lists, numbered lists, tables -- any *block* element inside a ``>``-prefixed blockquote -- gets evicted by Streamdown / remark, dropping everything after it onto the document level. The vision LLM happily produces bulleted descriptions, so this hit the viewer in practice. A horizontal-rule-delimited section, by contrast, contains only standard top-level markdown -- bold labels and free-form body -- so the description's native markdown (lists, prose, tables) all renders natively in every renderer. Layout (OCR section omitted when ``ocr_text`` is None/empty): --- **Embedded image:** `MM-130-a.jpeg` **OCR text:** Slice 24 / 60 L R **Visual description:** - Axial contrast-enhanced CT showing a large cystic mass... - Mass effect on the adjacent stomach. --- Still LLM-friendly: the ``**Embedded image:** ```` prefix is unique and trivially regex-able (``^\\*\\*Embedded image:\\*\\* `(.+?)`$``). Returned with leading and trailing blank-line padding so the rules never merge with adjacent paragraphs after splicing. """ parts: list[str] = [f"**Embedded image:** `{name}`"] if ocr_text and ocr_text.strip(): # Bold "OCR text:" label with trailing two spaces (=>
) so # the first OCR line sits directly under the label rather than # forcing a paragraph break that some renderers would style # differently. Subsequent OCR lines also use trailing two spaces # for hard breaks, so multi-line OCR renders line-by-line # without needing a (fragile) fenced code block. ocr_clean_lines = [ ln.rstrip() for ln in ocr_text.strip().splitlines() if ln.strip() ] parts.append("") parts.append("**OCR text:** ") for i, raw in enumerate(ocr_clean_lines): suffix = "" if i == len(ocr_clean_lines) - 1 else " " parts.append(f"{raw}{suffix}") parts.append("") parts.append("**Visual description:**") parts.append("") parts.append(description.strip()) body = "\n".join(parts) # Wrap with blank lines + horizontal rules so the block is clearly # delimited from surrounding paragraphs and survives splicing into # the middle of any markdown stream. return "\n\n---\n\n" + body + "\n\n---\n\n" # Patterns we'll try to splice into. Each pattern captures the # original-PDF filename when one is available (group 1). # # Replace-style markers (the matched span is substituted with our block # because it carries no useful content of its own): # # 1. Docling's image placeholder followed by an "Image: " # caption line. This is what our medxpertqa renderer produces: # reportlab places the JPEG, then a caption, and Docling outputs # the placeholder + caption. # 2. Docling's image placeholder alone (filename unknown -- we fall # back to pypdf's name). # 3. A bare "Image: " caption line with no preceding # placeholder. Rare in practice, but covers parsers that drop the # placeholder entirely. _PLACEHOLDER_WITH_CAPTION = re.compile( r"\s*\n\s*Image:\s*(\S+)\s*(?:\n|$)", re.IGNORECASE, ) _PLACEHOLDER_ONLY = re.compile( r"", re.IGNORECASE, ) _CAPTION_ONLY = re.compile( r"^[ \t]*Image:\s*(\S+)\s*$", re.IGNORECASE | re.MULTILINE, ) # Append-after marker (the matched span is preserved verbatim and our # block is inserted immediately after it): # # 4. ``
...
`` as emitted by layout-aware parsers (Azure # Document Intelligence ``prebuilt-layout``, LlamaCloud premium). # The figure's own contents -- chart bar values, axis labels, # inline ``
``, embedded ```` for tabular figures # -- are themselves specialist OCR output, so we keep them and add # our vision-LLM block alongside. ``[^>]*`` in the open tag tolerates # optional attributes like ``
``; ``re.DOTALL`` # lets ``.`` cross the newlines inside the block. _FIGURE_BLOCK = re.compile( r"]*>.*?
", re.DOTALL | re.IGNORECASE, ) def _replace_one_match( markdown: str, pattern: re.Pattern[str], descriptions: list[PictureDescription], desc_idx: int, ) -> tuple[str, int]: """Replace the first occurrence of ``pattern`` with the next image block. Returns the new markdown and the new ``desc_idx`` (advanced if a replacement happened, unchanged otherwise). """ if desc_idx >= len(descriptions): return markdown, desc_idx match = pattern.search(markdown) if not match: return markdown, desc_idx desc = descriptions[desc_idx] captured_name: str | None = None if match.groups(): captured_name = match.group(1) name = captured_name or desc.name block = _format_image_block(name, desc.description, desc.ocr_text) new_markdown = markdown[: match.start()] + block + markdown[match.end():] return new_markdown, desc_idx + 1 def _splice_after_figures( markdown: str, descriptions: list[PictureDescription], desc_idx: int, ) -> tuple[str, int]: """Append vision-LLM blocks immediately after each ``
...
``. Layout-aware parsers (Azure DI ``prebuilt-layout``, LlamaCloud premium) wrap each figure / chart / inline table in this tag and carry their own OCR of the figure's text content inside it. That content is useful on its own, so we keep the original block verbatim and add our vision-LLM block right after it -- giving retrieval both signals in the same chunk. Descriptions are matched to figures in document order (first description -> first figure, etc.). All splice points are computed upfront with :func:`re.finditer` and applied in REVERSE order so earlier offsets stay valid as the markdown grows. Returns the advanced ``desc_idx`` for the caller's leftover-handling. """ if desc_idx >= len(descriptions): return markdown, desc_idx matches = list(_FIGURE_BLOCK.finditer(markdown)) if not matches: return markdown, desc_idx n_to_splice = min(len(matches), len(descriptions) - desc_idx) if n_to_splice <= 0: return markdown, desc_idx out = markdown # Walk in reverse so each splice's end-offset still points at the # right place in the (still-mutating) string. for i in range(n_to_splice - 1, -1, -1): match = matches[i] desc = descriptions[desc_idx + i] block = _format_image_block(desc.name, desc.description, desc.ocr_text) out = out[: match.end()] + block + out[match.end():] return out, desc_idx + n_to_splice def inject_descriptions_inline( markdown: str, result: PictureExtractionResult, ) -> tuple[str, int]: """Splice per-image markdown blocks into the document at image positions. Walks the markdown left-to-right, consuming descriptions in order. Tries two splicing strategies, in this order: 1. **Append-after** for ``
...
`` blocks emitted by layout-aware parsers (Azure DI ``prebuilt-layout``, LlamaCloud premium). The figure block carries the parser's own OCR of the figure -- we preserve it and add our vision-LLM block right after. 2. **Replace** for Docling-style markers, in priority order: - ```` followed by ``Image: `` caption, - ```` placeholder alone, - bare ``Image: `` caption. A document typically uses one style or the other (depending on which parser produced its markdown), so the two paths don't fight each other in practice. When they do co-occur, figures are consumed first. Returns ``(new_markdown, n_inlined)`` -- the count of descriptions that were placed inline. The caller decides what to do with any leftover descriptions (typically: append them at the end). """ if not result.descriptions: return markdown, 0 descriptions = result.descriptions desc_idx = 0 out = markdown # Step 1: layout-aware figures. One-shot batch -- finds ALL #
blocks, splices in document order until we exhaust # either side. out, desc_idx = _splice_after_figures(out, descriptions, desc_idx) # Step 2: Docling-style replacement markers. One match per # iteration, so a doc that has both a figure (consumed above) and # a Docling placeholder (consumed below) still works. while desc_idx < len(descriptions): before_idx = desc_idx out, desc_idx = _replace_one_match( out, _PLACEHOLDER_WITH_CAPTION, descriptions, desc_idx ) if desc_idx > before_idx: continue out, desc_idx = _replace_one_match( out, _PLACEHOLDER_ONLY, descriptions, desc_idx ) if desc_idx > before_idx: continue out, desc_idx = _replace_one_match( out, _CAPTION_ONLY, descriptions, desc_idx ) if desc_idx > before_idx: continue # No more positions to splice into. break return out, desc_idx def render_appended_section( descriptions: list[PictureDescription], *, skip_notes: PictureExtractionResult | None = None, heading: str = "## Image Content (vision-LLM extracted)", ) -> str: """Render leftover descriptions as an appended section. Used as a fallback when not every description could be inlined (either because the parser produced no detectable image markers, or because there were more extracted images than markers). """ if not descriptions and not skip_notes: return "" parts: list[str] = ["", heading, ""] for desc in descriptions: parts.append( _format_image_block(desc.name, desc.description, desc.ocr_text) ) parts.append("") if skip_notes is not None: notes: list[str] = [] if skip_notes.skipped_too_large: notes.append(f"{skip_notes.skipped_too_large} too large (> 5 MB)") if skip_notes.skipped_too_small: notes.append(f"{skip_notes.skipped_too_small} too small (< 1 KB)") if skip_notes.skipped_duplicate: notes.append(f"{skip_notes.skipped_duplicate} duplicate") if skip_notes.failed: notes.append(f"{skip_notes.failed} failed") if notes: parts.append(f"_Note: {', '.join(notes)} image(s) skipped._") return "\n".join(parts) def merge_descriptions_into_markdown( markdown: str, result: PictureExtractionResult, ) -> str: """Top-level: inline what we can, append what's left over. This is the function the ETL pipeline actually calls. It guarantees that no successfully-described image is silently dropped: anything we can't splice inline gets appended at the end with a heading that makes it clear those came from the document but weren't location-matched. """ if not result.descriptions: return markdown new_markdown, n_inlined = inject_descriptions_inline(markdown, result) leftover = result.descriptions[n_inlined:] if not leftover: return new_markdown # Distinguish in the heading whether NONE were inlined (parser # produced no markers at all) vs SOME (mismatched count). heading = ( "## Image Content (vision-LLM extracted)" if n_inlined == 0 else "## Image Content (additional, no inline marker found)" ) section = render_appended_section(leftover, heading=heading) if not section: return new_markdown return f"{new_markdown.rstrip()}\n\n{section.lstrip()}\n" __all__ = [ "PictureDescription", "PictureExtractionResult", "describe_pictures", "inject_descriptions_inline", "merge_descriptions_into_markdown", "render_appended_section", ]