Free GIS tools: Download and stitch huge satellite maps with PyMapStitcher and AppleMapDownloader
I recently released PyMapStitcher 3, a free desktop application for downloading and stitching very large satellite map areas into georeferenced GeoTIFF and BigTIFF files.
One of the main design goals was to avoid the RAM limitations that affect many existing map downloaders. PyMapStitcher streams the stitching process directly to disk, allowing mosaics that are often much larger than those practical with conventional approaches. In many cases, the limiting factor becomes available storage rather than system memory.
This also makes it an excellent companion for Mustatil, where PyMapStitcher generates the large georeferenced imagery and Mustatil performs AI/GIS workflows such as annotation, YOLO training, object detection, large-image inference, and geospatial export.
AppleMapDownloader
While working on mapping projects, I searched for a tool that could download and stitch Apple Maps imagery in the same way as other GIS downloaders work with XYZ tile servers. Surprisingly, I couldn't find a desktop application that provided this functionality for Apple Maps.
That led me to experiment with a completely different approach. Instead of relying on a traditional tile server, I developed a workflow that automates Apple's own web map viewer through embedded web views. Each view captures part of the map, and the software automatically aligns, stitches, and georeferences the resulting images into a single large mosaic.
The result is AppleMapDownloader, which applies the same low-memory streaming philosophy as PyMapStitcher while making it possible to create very large Apple Maps mosaics for GIS, archaeology, remote sensing, and research projects. It was essentially built because I needed such a tool myself and couldn't find an existing solution.
Website:
https://apple-map-downloader.com
Websites
PyMapStitcher:
https://py-map-stitcher.com
Mustatil AI:
https://mustatil-ai.com
Alternative website:
https://pymapstitcher.de
Main Features
- Download very large satellite map areas
- Low-memory streaming stitcher
- GeoTIFF & BigTIFF export
- Georeferenced EPSG:3857 output
- CUDA / CuPy acceleration
- Desktop GUI
- QGIS plugin
- Windows, Linux, macOS
- Snap, PyPI and Conda packages
Downloads
Microsoft Store
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9pds632rms2s?hl=de-DE&gl=DE
Windows Installer
https://github.com/tarekwasfy01/PyMapStitcher-3---Cuda-Maps-Downloader/releases/download/PyMapStitcher3/PyMapStitcher3_Offline_Setup.exe
Windows Portable (OneDir)
https://gitlab.com/TWasfy/pymapstitcher-3/-/raw/main/PyMapStitcher3_OnedirEXE_Offline_Setup.exe?ref_type=heads
Snap Store
https://snapcraft.io/pymapstitcher
Python
PyPI
https://pypi.org/project/pymapstitcher/
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install pymapstitcher
pymapstitcher
Conda
https://anaconda.org/channels/mustatil/packages/pymapstitcher/overview
conda install -c mustatil pymapstitcher
pymapstitcher
GitHub
PyMapStitcher:
https://github.com/tarekwasfy01/PyMapStitcher-3---Cuda-Maps-Downloader
AppleMapDownloader:
https://github.com/tarekwasfy01/AppleMapDowloader
Mustatil:
https://github.com/tarekwasfy01/Mustatil-YOLO-AI-Model-Trainer-
QGIS Plugin
https://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/PyMapStitcher2/
I'd love to hear feedback, feature requests, or suggestions from the GIS, archaeology, remote sensing, and mapping communities.