Cutting patterns out of a complex mesh

Hey guys! I’m trying to find an effective way of creating a pattern on a surface so that I may delete the pattern’s faces OR use boolean modifiers to make a skeleton-ized design

Is it possible that there is an alternative way? Like if I could import a 2D pattern from AutoCAD and somehow apply it to the face of the model, and then manually select and delete the faces away?

This is a good example of what I’m trying to do - https://static1.sw-cdn.net/rrstatic/img/materials/steel-top-klein-20131018.jpg

Thanks so much for your help!