With his short entitled "Waves of Grain," video designer Keith Skretch gives us an unusual, tomographic look at wood. Skretch took a chunk of what looks like Doug Fir, repeatedly ran it through a planer (you can see chatter and snipe marks) and snapped photos between each cycle, looping them together into this trippy stop-motion:

Skretch's wicked flick isn't the only one in this genre. Several years ago Michael Turri, as a student in the Stanford Design Program, did something similar with more precious woods than Doug Fir: Bocote, and what appears to be mahogany.

The cake-taker, though, is artist Laurin Dopfner's "Verschleif" from a couple years ago, where he starts off shaving walnut (the tree)—then moves onto other objects, like a plug adapter, a camera, walnut (the nut) and an animal skull: