Can I read model-data from assets at runtime via script?

So I want to do some morphing between meshes and skeletons. Do I have to instatiate the assets to get to the data? And is there any way to refer to an asset by its specific type (model) or can you only use GameObject for that?

As far as I know the only morphing Unity supports is Blend Shapes (other than custom mesh creation and manipulation). Is that what you mean? The only real information you can get from the object would be the number of blend shapes. If that’s all you want you could load the GameObject from the Resources folder and get the SkinnedMeshRenderer component to access blendShapeCount.

Sure you can

You would have find mesh object in your model. That contain vertex and index buffer. You can even create your fresh new model in runtime

If you don’t want to instantiate you could use Resources.Load you would get asset object. But for loading things in runtime you need to put file you want to be loaded in folder named Resources

Most of asset type in unity 5 let you read, manipulate and generate anything at runtime if you could understand the engine. Not an easy task but not so difficult. Have fun