Because glazing is an integral part of any vehicle's styling, each piece of automotive glass is unique to a specific opening within any individual vehicle. Hence three-dimensional shaping of the glass, together with imparting its increased strength and safety properties are at the heart of automotive glass processing.

However, ahead of this, certain pre-process operations must be undertaken.Pre-processing involves a number of preparatory activities, ahead of submitting the glass to heat treatment.

They include:

• cutting out the flat glass template from standard, rectangular 'block sizes' of automotive float;
• edge-working the shaped, but still flat, piece of glass to provide a smoothed glass edge;
• drilling any required holes within the glass;
• washing the glass, before clean-room printing is undertaken;
• printing of shade bands, logos, demisting circuits, integrated alarms and antennas etc. on the glass in a single pass process for simple features but a two or three pass process for demisting circuits, antennas and alarms.

On completion of these pre-process activities, the glass proceeds to be shaped and to receive its safety properties.