We had someone who was interested in setting up GeoServer for the MeDem project I am part of. We were interested in using that but the chap didn't stick around. Were were going to use a set of image tiles to import as the base layer and I think he said it could generate all the other Z tiles.

We have become interested in 3D mapping from a server via this Outerra which is pretty cool too. It renders the map locally but fetches 3D data tiles from cloud based servers.

So I guess if I want to style vector data then I could write some style guide (presumably in something like XML) and then a full fat map server would render the vector data out with that style. Interesting. I have used OpenStreetMap from the web interface but as yet not via any API.

I'm working on providing some kind of web server for maps - esp fantasy maps at the mo. But its all 2D image based not shape file or vector.