Abstract: The accuracy of visual measurement depends on a variety of factors, including the image discretization error, the used distortion model, feature detection error, the image resolution as well as the relative pose between the object and the camera. Although many reports are available on visual measurement applications, a systematical investigation of the above factors via simulation on the measurement precision is unavailable in the literature to our knowledge. This work is to give a systematical simulation and analysis of the above factors on the measurement accuracy. The simulation results show that the appropriate distortion model selection is the most important factor. When the image resolution is high, the effect of image discretization error is negligible. In contrast, image feature detection error could severely affect the accuracy of the estimated distortion parameters, which in turn affect the accuracy of the visual measurement. More specifically, for a 30 m×30 m planar object, it appears impossible to obtain an absolute measurement accuracy of 10 mm when the image resolution is of 2500×2500 pixels and the feature location error is less than one pixel. The above results could be of reference to both researchers and practitioners in the field.