Vector-based OSM viewer

I’m currently compiling the OSM map data into a SQL Server 2008 database with the aim of creating a vector-based map renderer in C#. A big job, I know! Which is why I’ve got a lot of questions to ask that I hope you’ll be able to help me with…

I’m just going to reel these off as I encounter problems, so please be patient with me. :slight_smile:

So, first things first - drawing the land and the oceans. I assume that with OSM, everything should be drawn as ocean unless there is geometry over it, so how best to draw the land mass as a polygon? Is it basically a case of linking all of the coast lines together into a polygon, and filling this with a colour? Or are land masses defined in a better way for this purpose?

Thanks.