Evaluation of camouflage effectiveness based on optical image analysis has an important guiding significance to improve the survivability of main battle equipment in the battlefield, and it is one of the hot issues in the field of military defense. To facilitate researchers in related fields, the evaluation methods and research progress of optical camouflage effect are introduced briefly, such as conventional method, neural network evaluation model, human visual attention mechanism model and multi-attribute decision model. Then the basic ideas and applications of typical evaluation methods are expounded. After that, the characteristics and deficiencies of different models and the problems faced by the evaluation of optical camouflage effects are analyzed. On this basis, it is pointed out that the acquisition of training samples, the adaptability of model parameters and the timeliness of motion target camouflage evaluation are the research focuses of future camouflage effect evaluation.