paperview

PaperView (ppv)

Turn a research paper or codebase into a narrated, animated explainer video, rendered locally with code, not generated.

Here's a video explaining PaperView, generated by PaperView:

Status: v0.1 (early, first public release). Claude Code adapter only.

Demos

Every video below was generated by PaperView itself, explaining real papers and codebases:

Contents

• How it works
• Getting Started
• How is this different from NotebookLM?
• CLI
• License

How it works

PaperView splits the job between the coding agent (the judgment) and a deterministic CLI (the mechanics):

• You point the agent at a source — a paper (a local PDF, or an arXiv id/link that's downloaded for you) or a codebase (a local path, or a GitHub URL that's cloned for you).
• The agent reads it and writes a scene plan — the narration plus which visual component (and its props) for each scene, grounded in the paper's text and figures or the code itself.
• ppv parses the source — text and figures via PyMuPDF, with real equations pulled from the arXiv LaTeX.
• ppv tts synthesizes the narration locally with Kokoro — no API keys, nothing leaves your machine.
• ppv render renders the scene plan deterministically with Remotion, typesetting math with KaTeX — real code, figures, and diagrams, not generated pixels.
• The output is a topic-named MP4 in its own run directory under ~/.paperview/runs/.

Getting Started

Prerequisites: Claude Code, plus git, python3, node/npm, and ffmpeg on your PATH. /ppv:setup installs everything else (Python venv, Remotion deps, local models).

Run these inside an interactive Claude Code session.

1. Add the marketplace and install the plugin (one time):

/plugin marketplace add ssrajadh/paperview
/plugin install ppv@paperview
/reload-plugins

2. Bootstrap the toolchain (one time):

/ppv:setup

3. Generate a video — from a paper (a local PDF):

/ppv:gen ~/Downloads/attention_is_all_you_need.pdf, 3 minutes, focus on attention

…or from an arXiv id / link (the PDF is downloaded for you, equations pulled from the LaTeX):

/ppv:gen arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762, 3 minutes, expert

…or from a codebase / GitHub URL (the repo is cloned for you):

/ppv:gen https://github.com/ssrajadh/sentrysearch, 2 minutes, focus on the architecture

To update later, refresh the marketplace and reload (re-run /ppv:setup if a release changes the toolchain):

/plugin marketplace update paperview
/reload-plugins

Contributor / local-dev install (run straight from a clone, no marketplace)

git clone https://github.com/ssrajadh/paperview && cd paperview
claude --plugin-dir ./adapters/claude-code   # load the plugin from the working tree
/ppv:setup
/ppv:gen ~/Downloads/attention_is_all_you_need.pdf, 3 minutes, focus on attention

How is this different from NotebookLM?

NotebookLM's Video Overviews are great for a quick narrated summary. PaperView optimizes for something different — a faithful, reproducible explainer built from the source's real content:

In short: reach for NotebookLM when you want a fast overview; reach for PaperView when you want the paper's actual equations and figures — or a codebase's actual code — in a video you can reproduce, tweak, and run offline.

CLI (what the agent drives)

ppv doctor                       # health-check the toolchain
ppv parse  <pdf|md|txt> --out <dir>    # text + figures (PDF, Markdown, or text source)
ppv validate <scenes.json> [--assets <dir>]   # fast-fail plan check (no TTS/render cost)
ppv tts    <scenes.json> --out <dir>   # narration WAVs + durations.json
ppv render <scenes.json> --workdir <dir> --out <mp4> [--resolution 810p|540p] [--draft] [--crf N] [--progress]

Run ppv components for the component library and ppv schema for the full plan JSON Schema (ppv tts --list-voices lists the narration voices).

License

PaperView itself is licensed under Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE).

It builds on third-party tools that carry their own licenses, which govern what you may do with the rendered pipeline — read them before any commercial or at-scale use:

• Remotion (rendering) is source-available, not classic OSS: free for individuals and small teams, but companies above its size threshold need a paid license, and there are restrictions on building competing products. See https://remotion.dev/license — PaperView's Apache-2.0 grant does not override these terms.
• PyMuPDF (PDF parsing) is AGPL-3.0 (or a commercial license from Artifex). You install it as a dependency; obligations attach to anyone who redistributes a combined work.
• Kokoro (local TTS) ships Apache-2.0 weights.

Privacy: PaperView runs entirely locally and collects no data — no analytics, telemetry, or phone-home. See PRIVACY.md.