You can map a mesh in rhino by assigning a color to each vertices. In the video above you can see that the single face will interpolate between a color for each of the four vertices.

Using grasshopper you can map the vertices of a complex mesh using the distance between each of the vertices and a set of points. By getting the weighted average of those distances and applying that to a list of colors that correlates with the set of points you can get an interpolated color for each vertices of the mesh and then rebuild it.

You can download the above grasshopper definition here: color_mapping.zip

By using a definition that maps the color along with a definition that creates cut files and connection details for each face you can fabricate a physical version of a form with the color map applied. We used a similar workflow for CHROMAtex.