UV Mesh is a nice Maya plugin that can be used to flatten a mesh to the ground plane in the form of the UVs.
The pack on Gumroad comes with a READ_ME file with more information on how to use the tool.
What is more, the pack features a free Maya Deformer called NormalPush.
“NormalPush is a deformer that pushes all vertices on a mesh out along the normals. It’s similar to the Transform Tool in Maya, except you can paint vertex maps where you want it to be applied. It can also be animated so it’s useful for Modeling, CFX, Rigging, etc.”
You can learn more and get the pack for $4.99 here.