International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

The issues related to road safety and the complexity of the driving task present a continuously increasing burden for the driver. In order to support this task, the existing on-board systems in vehicles primarily display visual messages, forcing drivers to move their eyes from the road. This paper presents a survey of studies related to perception and cognitive attention of drivers when this information is presented on the windshield (Head-Up Displays). Past research has suggested that this technology is considered as a possible solution for reducing the time and frequency of drivers moving their eyes of traffic. However, this technology brings its own challenges that are discussed in this paper. Augmented Reality concept is also presented because this solution adds new challenges to the technology as the risk of occlusion of real objects that are relevant to the traffic as well as phenomena like perception tunneling and cognitive capture.

The advanced technologies find their application in many areas of todays’ human life. This provides the engineers with a new ability in the area of technical visualization in different formal or informal engineering processes. Augmented and virtual reality are visualization technologies in which the virtual objects are combined with the real ones and coexist in the same space, or completely substitute the reality with computer modelled environment. In their nature, these technologies open up opportunities for their application in various processes in the area of automotive engineering. In this stage of development of these visualization technologies, initial steps have to be made for their use in engineering tasks in the area of automotive engineering. Real expectations exist that these technologies can serve as additional tools in the processes like vehicle approval or vehicle maintenance, or as an additional tool in the hands of the experts that make the crash forensics. This paper presents the results of conducted research in the direction of use of technical solutions for visualization of vehicles in different areas of the automotive engineering, presenting their positive characteristics along with their limitations.