Introduction to Image Translation

Overview

Image Translation provides three capabilities: general image translation, e-commerce image translation, and standard certificate translation. Developers can integrate with the API and use an image editor to edit translated content. Non-developers can use the Online Image Translation and Editing Platform to translate and edit images or standard certificates.

Image translation

General-purpose image translation

This service integrates technologies such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR), text information processing, machine translation, and image synthesis to provide a fully automated, end-to-end translation service. You can simply upload an image and specify the source and target languages to obtain an automatically translated version of the image.

E-commerce image translation

Alibaba Cloud Machine Translation has extensive experience in E-commerce scenarios. It helps cross-border trade platforms and merchants improve their multilingual product content to attract more traffic and achieve higher conversion rates.

Product images are a key part of product detail pages and the core medium for showcasing product highlights to attract buyers. As image and video technologies advance, images have become the primary format for product details, replacing plain text descriptions. For merchants in cross-border trade, original product information, including text and images, is often in Chinese. Publishing images with Chinese text can detract from the browsing experience for international buyers because they cannot understand the product information. This negatively affects the user experience and can reduce purchase conversions and damage the brand image.

Traditionally, merchants spend significant time and money translating images. This process is cumbersome and involves using tools such as Photoshop for image editing and third-party translation software. Our research shows that editing one product image for one foreign language takes over 30 minutes. This product provides intelligent image translation specifically for product images. It improves the efficiency of cross-border E-commerce merchants and reduces labor costs.

In addition to image translation, the E-commerce image translation feature offers a text filtering service for product entities in the E-commerce realm. When you call the API, you can use parameters to decide whether to translate text on product entities, such as text on clothing, product packaging, or electronic screens.

Image translation editor

You can manually edit and optimize the results of automatic machine translation in a mode that separates the text from the image. The image translation editor is available through both the online image translation platform and the Image Translation API.

• Text editing: Retranslate text, or modify the content and style of the translated text.

• Background editing: Modify the fill method of the background layer.

• Restore: Restore areas that do not require translation to their original state.

• Translate selected text: Translate text that was not previously translated.

• One-click Image Cutout: Select a background color based on the requirements of the publishing platform and generate a cutout image with one click.

• Image cropping: Crop the image to the required dimensions based on the requirements of the publishing platform.

• Comparison view: Switch to a side-by-side view of the translated and original images.

• One-click replace: Replace proper nouns and brand names with a single click.

a. Image list area, b. Layer list area, c. Translated image editing area, d. Main function area, e. Layer information area

1. Collapse the image list. 2. Hide, lock, or delete layers. 3. Collapse the layer list. 4. Collapsible floating toolbar for common functions. 5. Preview the current image. 6. Collapse the layer information area.

For developers who want to access the image translation editor through the API, see Image Editor Integration Guide. For non-developers, a one-stop, end-to-end online editing platform is available. See the table below for details:

Standard certificate translation

The standard certificate translation product integrates OCR and Machine Translation (MT) features to help translate information on standard cards and certificates. It supports various certificate types, such as ID cards and driver's licenses, and provides translation support for scenarios such as seeking medical treatment or studying overseas.

Recommended image formats are JPG, JPEG, and PNG. Keep the certificate image size under 4 MB. Larger images increase the API call time.

• Supported types:

• Example of structured recognition fields for an ID card:

• Example of structured recognition fields for a driver's license:

Scenarios

• Cross-border E-commerce

Translate product display images and product detail pages in cross-border E-commerce scenarios.

• Medical literature

The medical realm contains tens of millions of data entries and millions of professional terms.

• Industry research reports

Batch translate data charts within research reports to build multilingual databases.

• Overseas travel and study

Translate required certificates before you travel or study overseas.

Benefits

• Stable and reliable

Offers 99.99% service reliability and global availability. It decodes a single sentence on a single machine in hundreds of milliseconds.

• Superior algorithms

Uses an advanced end-to-end deep learning framework that is trained on hundreds of millions of parallel sentence pairs.

• Easy-to-use API operations

Standardized API encapsulation reduces development effort.

• Post-translation editing

Provides an online editing platform for editing translated content, which meets the needs of non-developers.

Supported formats

1. Online editing platform

• File size limit: 5 MB

• Pixel limit: 4000 × 4000

• Supported formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP

2. API operations

• File size limit: 10 MB

• Pixel limit: Minimum 15 px, maximum 8192 px, aspect ratio < 10:1

• Supported formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF (only the first frame is translated), WebP

Supported languages

I. Supported languages

• General-purpose image translation and E-commerce image translation

• Standard certificate translation

II. Language code list

When you make an API call, you must pass the language codes for the source and target languages. Ensure that you use the correct language codes to avoid call failures. For more information about language codes, see Language Code List for Machine Translation.

Online image translation and editing platform

The Image Translation product provides the Online Image Translation and Editing Platform. Non-developers can use this platform for online image translation, editing, batch downloads, and other operations. After you activate the Image Translation service, go to the Machine Translation console homepage. On the Image Translation product card, click Online Translation Platform to access the platform and use its online image translation and editing features.

For more information, see User Guide for the Online Image Translation and Editing Platform.

API quick start

For more information about API calls, see Image Translation Integration Guide, Image Editor Integration Guide, and Certificate Translation Integration Guide.