They used AI to wipe away the dust of the years and recreate the memory of China's first Asian Games gold medal half a century ago.

Today, the Hangzhou Asian Games ushered in the birth of the first gold medal

In the rowing women’s lightweight double sculls final, Chinese players Zou Jiaqi and Qiu Xiuping cooperated to win the gold medal at this Asian Games. The first gold medal

The Chinese delegation has won more than 10 gold medals on the first day of competition. From Beijing to Guangzhou and then to Hangzhou, after 32 years of three Asian Games, we have witnessed the process of China becoming a sports power

At the same time, a story about the "first gold medal" hit the screen, and it also made people Many people shed tears:

## In 1974 in Tehran, New China participated in the Asian Games for the first time. At this Asian Games, Chinese athletes made a splash, winning a total of 32 gold medals, showing the world a new image of a major sports country.

Among them, China's first Asian Games gold medal was born on the first day of the competition: in the "50-meter slow fire of self-selected small-caliber pistol" event, Su Zhibo defeated Japan's Shoshu Ota , winning the first Asian Games gold medal for New China with a score of 552 rings.

# This 50 -meter pistol slow shooting champion awards ceremony.

At that time, the performance difference between the two players was only about two rings, and the final ranking needed to be verified by the referee. According to Su Zhibo's recollection, in order to maintain physical strength, athletes usually need to take a nap, but at noon, he tossed and turned and couldn't fall asleep.

"Until the afternoon, the team leader said to me: "Su Zhibo, you have won the championship!" I didn't know at the time that it was the first time in the history of China's Asian Games A gold medal."

This medal and certificate of China's first gold medal in the Asian Games are still carefully kept in Su Zhibo's home. Just because of the age, even the surface of the medal is somewhat mottled, and the handwritten black font on the certificate has become blurry.

Equally vague are the memories and images of that year. In an era when cameras and film were very expensive, very few image data were handed down, making it difficult for us today to intuitively understand the style of Chinese athletes.

The distant memory behind "China's first Asian Games gold medal"

Speaking of video materials , even Su Zhibo, the gold medal winner that year, only has a few black and white photos in his hands, all of which were gifts from others.

^#.

# "The only photos I have are basically donated by foreign athletes. Not to mention color (film), even black and white film felt... It’s very expensive. If you want to buy a film and have it developed, you may lose a month’s salary.” This is also something Su Zhibo regrets: he didn’t leave any photos at that time, and he will never be able to look back at the memories of that year after retiring.

It coincides with the 110th anniversary of the Asian Games. In order to help the public intuitively experience the style of athletes in the past, the Official Archives of the Olympic Council of Asia announced a number of Tehran Asian Games Old photos include important scenes such as the Chinese team’s entrance, Chinese women’s hurdles, table tennis matches, basketball matches, and fencing matches.

# After nearly half a century, these images of New China’s first participation in the Asian Games have been disclosed to the public for the first time. What is particularly noteworthy is that Alibaba Cloud has used the most advanced AI technology to restore these precious historical materials.

As the official partner of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, Alibaba Cloud hopes to use AI technology to help restore historical materials so that more people can see these memorable moments. "There are many stories worth seeing in that Asian Games. These past events can not only inspire today's athletes, but also inspire every one of us ordinary people."

With the support of a series of AI technologies, the images of the past have regained their luster.

That year, Su Zhibo was only 25 years old. It was the efforts of that generation of athletes that made Chinese sports continue to move toward glory:

Among the restored images this time, there are not only photos of Su Zhibo, but also show the past style of many players in that Asian Games. If you also want to experience the effect of AI repair, click on the picture below to try it:

##                                                                                     Effect after AI repair

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

^{#This photo is from the opening ceremony of the 1974 Asian Games. From this moment on, Chinese sports On the journey to the world}

##                                                                              Click to view Effect after AI restoration

The first difficulty in repairing old photos usually comes from the quality of the image itself. Many of these old photos from 49 years ago have faded, scratched and other problems

During the process of AI restoration of historical materials of the Asian Games, the Alibaba Cloud technical team also discovered that there is a special challenge in the restoration of old photos this time: ensuring the authenticity of historical materials.

Take photo coloring as an example, such as the national flag, national emblem, medals, and athletes’ uniforms. These color restoration parts need to match the actual colors in history. In order to achieve this, the Alibaba Cloud technical team spent a lot of time looking for suitable reference picture materials and repeatedly communicated with relevant experts from the Olympic Council of Asia.

In addition, during the restoration process of video historical materials, factors such as the overall smoothness of the video also need to be considered. These problems have brought about a series of technical challenges.

Redraw faded memories with the pen of AI

Based on the richness of the open source community With the accumulation of AI repair technology, the Alibaba Cloud technical team quickly developed a complete technical link and completed the repair work on the Alibaba Cloud platform.

In terms of the process, the first step is to denoise, super-redefine, color, and partially redraw the old photos. In the process, it is necessary to use the image non-reference evaluation index to generate Image quality was quantitatively analyzed. After these basic work, the team will also consider whether it has achieved "restoration as before", retaining the artistic effect and flavor of the old photos, and examines the overall authenticity of the photos after coloring, such as the colors of people, events, and key objects. .

"Most of the work is automatically completed by AI. We also combine AI to repair the commonly used generative adversarial networks in the past, as well as the AIGC model that has become popular in the past two years. , such as Stable Diffusion. The repair technology links that may be involved in each photo are actually different. We will choose the most suitable model according to the problem. There are many models used in the entire repair process, about thirty or so. " Huang Jun, head of the algorithm of the machine learning PAI team of Alibaba Cloud Computing Platform Division, said.

This Aya Cloud Technology Expert ⼩ Group discussed in front of the computer to repair Su Zhi's Bo Ling Awards ⽚ Technical Case.

##################Specifically, using the AIGC model and the classic CV model in combination for image restoration mainly has the following advantages: ######1. Increase Diversity in picture restoration. The AIGC model can help the restored image content to be richer, more diverse, and more realistic; ######2. Increase the controllability of image restoration. By adding appropriate prompts, local image details can be adjusted and the content of the adjustment can be controlled, thereby completing image repair more accurately; ######3. Reduce dependence on the quality of the original image. Previous artificial intelligence repair technology relied heavily on the quality of the original image, while AIGC can fill in image details to a certain extent, thereby achieving better repair effects###

In addition to its outstanding effects, the biggest advantage of AI repair is that it greatly improves the efficiency of repair work and lowers the threshold for completing the task. For a professional-level human retoucher, it will take a day or two to repair a defective picture to a relatively good level. But with the help of AI technology, you only need to click one or two buttons and select a few parameters to achieve effects comparable to those of a retoucher.

In addition, the Alibaba Cloud technical team has encapsulated this complex repair process into a simple and easy-to-use tool chain, including more than 30 models in the visual field and common plug-ins and interactive tools, and are open to the public through Alibaba Cloud's machine learning platform PAI.

On the eve of the Asian Games, the Official Archives of the Olympic Council of Asia and Alibaba Cloud jointly launched the "Timeless - AI Restoration of Asian Games Historical Data" project, which was launched on aliyun The "Using AI to Repair Old Asian Games Photos" event was held on .com.

The PAI platform is preset with a wealth of open source SOTA repair models, such as repair, denoising, coloring and other algorithms, and provides Stable Diffusion WebUI for users to interactively repair images . Any participant can adjust parameters as needed and combine different processing methods to obtain the best repair results. Even people who are unfamiliar with software such as image design and PS can perform image restoration and participate in the renewal of the history of the Asian Games.

##Reference example: https://gallery.pai-ml.com/?spm=ata.21736010.0.0.779a7536zJUsFn#/preview/deepLearning/cv/image_restoration

The intersection of technology and humanity

After the repair work of the Alibaba Cloud technical team was completed, Su Zhibo became one of the first viewers invited to watch the results.

#After the screening, Su Zhibo expressed the hope of viewing the photos again. Since those who participated in the competition on the first day could not attend the opening ceremony the day before, and the shooting team was the first event every time, Su Zhibo participated in three Asian Games but never walked through the opening ceremony. This was also his One of life's regrets.

When the photo appeared on the big screen again, Su Zhibo stood up excitedly, walked to the screen, and touched the past...

                                              not only photos, but also the regrets in people’s hearts.

Zou Xinyi, AI algorithm engineer of the machine learning PAI team of Alibaba Cloud Computing Platform Division, said: “In 1974, my mother was only two years old. I don’t know much about history. My biggest feeling is that our country won so many gold medals at the Asian Games in 1974. If I didn’t restore the athletes in these photos, I might not know who they are. The significance of this project , so that everyone can see the 1974 Asian Games."

After the "Using AI to restore precious historical materials of the Asian Games" activity started, about 15,000 people participated in the activity, and exchanged views More than 1,000 restoration works have been produced. Opening the homepage of the event, you can also feel everyone's high enthusiasm:

#The outstanding works among them will have the opportunity to be selected into the "1974 Tehran Asian Games Special Exhibition", which is also the first time in the history of the Asian Games The first AI restored image exhibition. From September 24 to October 8, the precious historical materials restored with AI will be on display at the Hangzhou Asian Games Museum.

With the help of AI technology, history that was once dusty is unfolding scene by scene.

Which old photos in your memory do you most want to restore to look like new?

Click this link to participate in the "Using AI to Repair Old Asian Games Photos" activity.

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