Can I isolate the wood grain from an image and turn it into a realistic vector?

It's pretty difficult to make a vector-based wood grain texture that looks realistic and is practical to edit and print. Realistic wood grain is really complex. I've done a few things with simulated wood grain textures, but I've gone in the opposite direction, making the textures more graphical looking. I'd start out in Photoshop with an old AlienSkin Eye Candy plugin to create a pixel-based wood grain texture. Then I would manipulate the results into something that could generate good selections and work paths. The results aren't photo-realistic at all; it's very stylized. But the line work is clean, more simple and not likely to be rejected by a large format RIP application (due to the objects having way too many anchor points, among other issues).

You mentioned your printer can create depth. Does that mean it can build up a 3D relief effect on the material? Does it only work with vector-based content? If I was going to build up a wood grain texture in an image and wanted it realistic looking I'd probably just use a high resolution, pixel-based photo as a source. Then I would either use alpha channels and/or blending modes to incorporate that texture into an image to be printed.