If you select Direction, the Angle and Weight fields activate. (The upper icon is Free, and the lower red highlighted one is Direction just look for the tool tips). In this case, Free and Direction Conditions are available. When you select the Condition pulldown, you will notice differing option depending on the profiles and guides selected previously. Now, if we proceed to the Conditions tab, we can tell the application more about what WE want to see. In a Free state, the preview below shows the transition. Since this is a straight interpolation, we don’t need any centerline or rails. Using loft we select the outer profile from the lower sketch, and the upper sketch profile as well. We start out with a lower and upper 2D sketch profile. The rear edge is offset farther than the front, and the upper edge is not a typical fillet This is a perfect candidate for a Loft. The Right side view (below) shows the problem with fillets and sweeps. While a Sweep around an extruded Feature might normally get a similar job done as easily, you would need more than 1 rail, adding complexity to process. In the image below, you should see the part I needed to tie into another loft feature, with a specific angle at the transition. Today, we’ll use Angles and Weights to create a transition between 2 other features, that would normally take a bit more time and planning to complete. The trick is to control the interpolation to accomplish your goal. The Loft Feature has so much control over the process, by weighted interpolation, there is no reason not to use it.

While you can reproduce the model by other means, the pain involved would be extensive. Whatever the reason, I just never liked Lofts very much. Maybe because the application seems to have more control that I do during the process, or because I had some bad experiences with 3DS 10 years ago (pre MAX). Lofting….I don’t know about you, but this has been one of the things I learned to hate.

Loft function fusion 360