Hi

Brian D : "Good 2D
and 3D CAD software contains options to do just this, e.g. produce
'developable surfaces' or 'conic section curves'. "

Exactly but please don't forget that with the same computer
"'developable surfaces'" are not restricted to be shaped as slices of
"known geometrics".
I know many have bad experiment with socalled unfolding software but
realy most bad shapes come from free-download limited software , that
can only produce a very rough unfolding ----- fact is that with just a
bit effort you can "unfold" reasoable tight poly mesh , the limitations
most often is in the number of faces allowed by the CAD program a
limitation you can overcome with external files ------ so surely
unfolding are tradisionaly done from "known geometrics" but realy you
don't need to buckle a troubled assembly of cylinders and cone slices
,fact is that you can unfold computer meshes, you don't need to "build
with known geometrics just to unfold.