my first foray into Maya!

...for the class Special Effects of Form. Assignment #1 asked that we (my other 2 team members and myself) create a surface using 3 curves and 3 animation tools in Maya, and submit a 60-second animation and a 500 word essay. In phase one we created a cell structure/surface (John), phase two applied a soft-modifier to twist it (Kai), and phase three used clustering and spring constraints to generated the morphing form (me).
First thoughts after working with the software: Maya is designed to create form as surface and object as artificial constructs with the final rendering as the ultimate goal. Can Maya be used to create form from volume? Maya only reads solids as thin surfaces - everything is hollow (a solid cube is really a box with 6 surfaces). Can we use voxels or volumetric materials instead? Maybe play around with particles systems, fluid dynamics, fog/volume lights/radiosity/reflection/radiation....or are these only post-production effects? Might be interesting to explore voxels in medical imaging. Are they used in architectural simulations? How does the urban radar/xray at Halcro work?