I want to store a very large amount of vector data on a server and only poll the parts I need at a given point...
This shouldn't be a problem.
Is there any way to take a vector file like an svg file and import it into a database? I could always write an svg parser to import it into my database, but is there any standard way of doing this or storing vector data in a database ?
I don't think you can call it a standard, but here is an interesting link to an academic paper:
A Design and Implementation of Spatial Database Based on XML-SVG
Abstract:
SVG, which stands for Scalable Vector Graphics, is an open standard in text that makes it possible to represent graphic information in compact, portable form and mostly faces on publishing the spatial vector graphics in network environment. In practice, it's impossible to avoid a great capacity of spatial data processing, which had made SVG document is too big to be implemented during publishing on the Internet.
It is slowed down the executing speed of the system on client side and is weaken its advantages and superiority. Such SVG database has been proposed as the solution for managing all the graphics and its attributes in a Web server. SVG document is mapped into SVG database that works as a buffer in the server. The issuance efficiency has been improved to a great extent.
I could always put a giant svg document into a database, but I need to be able to look up vertices at lightning fast speed and I already have all the information in an svg document. I just need a rationalized way of implementing the information in a database.
In MSSQL you have a XML column type that allows you to do XPATH type queries.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/197099/select-specific-rows-with-mssql-xml-column-type