I'm currently looking at the options regarding how to do a strategic map for a web application.

My goals here are :
<ul>
<li>a synthethic view of what's happening in a stelar system </li>
<li>the ability to management movements (through displaying trajectories of some ships and planets/star(s))</li>
<li>the development should'nt take years, since we're few on the project</li>
</ul>

The usability challenges at hands are IMHO:
<ul>
<li>scale issues: both in terms of ships/planets/stars volumes and distance. In the end, I guess markers/symbols are the way to go</li>
<li>density of information: there could be much there</li>
<li>frequent updates of the map needed (every 30 seconds or so, would be better if partial reload/refresh possible)</li>
</ul>

Options I'm aware of:
<p><strong>use of a table, through the background image and cells images</strong></p>
<ul>
<li> + easy to do on my own</li>
<li>+ partial refresh possible (ajax on a per cell basis)</li>
<li> - very low resolution => looks poor</li></ul>
<p><strong>JavaScript map drawing</strong></p>

<ul>
<li> + looks very powerful</li>
<li> - big work needed (I haven't found pre existing plugin/library/framework doing this, whereas I'm not a JavaScript guru)</li>
<li> - way to go unclear: canvas or dom manipulation?</li></ul>
<p><strong>use of svg pictures</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>+ resolution amazing</li>
<li>+ http://raphaeljs.com/ to the rescue</li>
<li>- I don't know much about svg</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>CSS3</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>I'm rather clueless about it, what about performance/cross browser support and the like...</li>
</ul>

As a side note, I don't want to bother too much for IE.

Did I miss something obvious? What would you suggest?

thanks in advance
best

BTW, a related topic but more focused on svg: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/4306/is-svg-a-viable-technology-choice-for-web-based-game