Getting back tho this after the holidays.

I had one last go at the problem with loose loft. I discovered that if you introduce control points into the curves you can get the loft tool to understand what parts of curve A map to what parts of curve B.

1) Use the trim tool to add trim points to the start and end curves. The curves need to be split into the same number of segments.
2) Use the join tool to merge the segments back into one curve. (My guess in the the join tool merges co-located end points into a single 'corner' point that the curves must go through vs. a regular control point)
3) Loft as normal


In this example I made a very small segment right at the apex of the narrow form on the left of the image, breaking the curve into 3 segments. Then I mapped that to the much larger area on the right hand side. So this tells the loft tool that the small area at the apex on the left should be expanded to cover the vertical area of the form on the right. Add a couple of intermediary coppies of those curves, use loose loft and you get this:


This result is not perfect. I had to chop and blend the area where you see the narrow ping band. I used the technique of sweeping a circle along the curve to produce the cuttaway form. My guess is with some messing around with corner point placement I could avoid this altogether.

This result is about 90% of what I'm after and maybe this idea will be useful to someone else. I have more specific control over the flat area where the intake is so I'm going to try a totally different approach next.

@Michael: could we get some visual indication of which points are regular control points and which are 'corner' points. Like maybe a sub menu for 'Show Points' that would set us see just one type and/or different coloration or iconography when all points are shown?