Developing an augmented reality (AR) system involves multiple algorithms such as image fusion, camera synchronization and calibration, and brightness control, each of them having diverse variants. This abundance of features, while beneficial in nature, is detrimental to developers as they try to navigate between different combinations and pick the most suitable towards their application. Additionally, the temporally inconsistent nature of the real world makes it hard to build reproducible scenarios for testing and comparison. To help address these issues, we develop a virtual reality (VR) environment that allows simulating a variety of AR configurations. We show the advantages of AR simulation in virtual reality, demonstrate an image fusion AR system and conduct an experiment to compare different fusion methods.