I also can't answer for directly in max but you could bake that to a flat plane and then just apply it as a tiling texture. You'll get more non-destructive iterative power that way too.
You can still do it via the texture route. Make a displacement texture and convert the displacement to geometry. This way you still gain the flexibility texturing offers, and the final output can be the same.
If you want to see a visual example look up clothing tutorials in zbrush. Many times people will do a quick unwrap of the clothing geometry in order to apply a tiling displacement texture, then convert that to hi-res geometry. It's not a software specific workflow though. I think any 3d app can take displacement map and convert to geo.
Note, this isn't something I have done a lot so maybe it will bring it's own issues, but I think it's an idea worth trying. The displacement might require an additional alpha map or something to target the areas you want to cut out, and then add a shell modifier or w/e they call it in max to bring the thickness back.
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