Color-toned mosaic from satellite and aerial imagery

The process of creating a color-toned mosaic from satellite and aerial imagery received a major update in January 2024 when MapTiler introduced Virtual Tileset JSON. This data format presents a whole new way of combining imagery from several different sources and color-toning them together. This page is there as a signpost helping you to navigate to either the old or the new process.

The new process - Virtual Tileset JSON

Please click through to the actual article describing the new composition process.

The old process - Composite JSON

In the very first step of creating a color-toned mosaic, you have to download MapTiler Server, and the MapTiler Satellite dataset and either create your own dataset or choose one of our high-res aerial imagery. With these data sources, you composite it using the composite.json file. The process is described in a stand-alone how-to. Now, it is time to create a seamless mosaic. To color-tone the aerial imagery layer to fit the satellite layer, you need to modify the previously created satellite.composite.json file. 

{
  "layers": [
    {
      "name": "mediumres",
      "url": "#maptiler-satellite-2021"
    },
    {
      "name": "aerial-france",
      "url": "#maptiler-aerial-france",
      "opacity": [[3, 1], [6, 0]]
      "color": { 20       
        "contrast": [3, 0.8], // [contrast, bias]
        "gamma": [1.3, 1.4, 1.5], // [R, G, B] factors 
        "saturation": 1.3      
      }
    }
  ],
  "center": [0, 0, 1]
}