>Back a while ago some guys had an interesting project where they captured the polygon >output from a RenderMan renderer (I think maybe AIR?)

That's correct Michael. AIR engine can do this. Also Rhino can do this (not as advanced as AIR yet). And Modo as well. Both AIR and Rhino can displace Nurbs objects directly and output a displaced mesh...

@ Brian - The idea to use a screenshot as displacement map only works if you can grab an image of the screenbuffer (see attached image) looking from the Top viewport. This is great for making quick alphas from 3D models that you can apply to fake "hard modeling" details in your sculpting app, such as gears, wall sockets, etc... Or you can just make a single knurl feature and repeat it as many times as you need in U/V directions in your render engine. This is just simple pyramid made in Photoshop... A tiny bit of blurring may be necessary to get the best displacement effect...

jonah