special effects of form

Pretty excited about this class I am taking at Columbia called "Special Effects of Form", with Hernan Diaz Alonso instructing. It is an exploratory laboratory for producing form using Maya as a tool - two weeks in, and it really seems aligned with my thesis direction. I am teamed up with 2 AAD students, and today we pitched the ultrasound/whiteread/indirect mapping/volume idea as a starting point to the instructor. Hernan's comments:
- translate a logic from other mediums into Maya, instead of finding a logic within the software and trying to use it for something it wasn't designed to do
- do more research - what other mediums does this occur?
- start thinking about how this can translate to fabrication - cnc mill, laser cutter, 3d printing
- focus on translation, not replication