The design of graphical augmented reality (AR) markers requires compromise between the aesthetic appearance and tracking reliability. To investigate the topic, we created a virtual reality (VR) pipeline to evaluate marker performance, and validated it against real-world performance for a set of graphical AR markers. We report that, with the well known Vuforia framework and typical smartphone hardware, well designed 20 × 20 cm markers can be tracked at distances of up to 68 cm. We note that the number of feature points is particularly important to a marker’s angular performance.
