Houdini Rough Idea: Deformation Based Displacement 

This is a very rough and quick setup to create displacement based on changes in the surface mesh. I go through a simple tube to using lines or curves from a face mesh to drive displacement and other shader values.
Thanks to Chris Jones for posting his great work on BlenderArtist.org (blenderartists.... His ideas influenced some of the ideas presented here.
This not a finished work tutorial but a conceptual idea sketch from which one could build.
Certainly, lots of smart people will point out all the better ways to do something like this. I am always open to hear suggestions, please leave them in the comments. I hope this helps someone to add that missing piece.
This video does not go node by node, but gives a general overview of the workflow.