A facility for producing a composite aerial image is described. The facility receives information specifying a geographic area. The facility obtains an aerial image showing the specified geographic area that was prepared using one or more aerial image sections. Each aerial image section covers a geographic area defined in terms of spherical coordinates, and was constructed by copying a portion of a master aerial image that was selected using rectangular coordinates into the master image that were determined by directly transforming the spherical coordinates defining the covered geographic area. The facility obtains information indexed to one or more distinguished geographic locations within the specified geographic area and, for each distinguished geographic location, composites into the obtained aerial image a visual indication of the information that is indexed to the distinguished geographic location.