Markerless image analysis for augmented reality

A markerless approach to displaying an image of a virtual object in an environment may be accomplished. A computing device 104 is used to capture an image of a real-world environment; including a planar surface 114 with a minimum threshold set of features. A second image is also captured during a movement of the device around the planar surface. One or more virtual objects which do not exist in the real-world environment are displayed in the image, such as by being positioned in a manner that they appear to be resting on the planar surface, based at least on a sensor bias value and scale information obtained by capturing multiple image views of the real-world environment. An inertial measurement unit with a tri-axis accelerometer and tri-axis gyroscope is used. The distance and orientation of the planar surface are also determined.