Abstract: The present technology pertains to validating a virtual camera in a simulation environment by utilizing an improved camera model to provide quantitative measurements of the model's performance. A method of validating a virtual camera in a simulation environment comprises presenting at least one reference chart in the simulated environment and capturing images of the reference chart in the simulated environment using a virtual camera. The method further includes interrupting an image pipeline of the virtual camera after at least one simulated process in the image pipeline to extract a RAW image. The method analyzes the RAW image to derive measurements of metrics to characterize the virtual camera. The measured metrics are compared to metrics of a calibrated real-world camera to verify that the metrics are within a threshold delta that is indicative that the virtual camera sufficiently approximates the real-world camera.