14. Review and Epilogue

In this chapter, we summarize the most important issues which we expect that the reader should have learned from the previous chapters. We repeat the six most important CAGD interpolations, and then we sketch a draft picture on the evolution of the computational methods which are based on the first five of them (older than isoGeometric Analysis). As the author happened to have been involved in these older CAD-based methodologies since 1982 and has somehow contributed in a large part of the whole CAE spectrum (FEM, BEM, and global collocation), the short history of this research is given from his point of view; a full list of the sixty papers, properly classified (in FEM, BEM, and collocation categories), is given in Appendix. In some places, the text is inspired by self-criticism. We believe that the compact information provided in this chapter, as well as the details in the whole book, will strengthen and broaden the horizon of researchers and postgraduate students in the field of Computational Mechanics. In more detail, we anticipate that the gap between CAD and CAE approaches and communities will be further reduced, bridging the older with the contemporary ideas.