After being introduced to approximate two-dimensional geographical surfaces in 1971, the multivariate radial basis functions (RBFs) have been receiving a great amount of attention from scientists and engineers. Over decades, RBFs have been applied to a wide variety of problems. Approximation, interpolation, classification, prediction, and neural networks are inevitable in nowadays science, engineering, and medicine. Moreover, numerically solving partial differential equations (PDEs) is also a powerful branch of RBFs under the name of the ‘Meshfree/Meshless’ method. Amongst many, the so-called ‘Generalized Multiquadric (GMQ)’ is known as one of the most used forms of RBFs. It is of (ɛ
2 + r
2)
β
form, where r = ║x-x
Θ║2 for x, x
Θ ∈ ℝ
n
represents the distance function. The key factor playing a very crucial role for MQ, or other forms of RBFs, is the so-called ‘shape parameter ɛ’ where selecting a good one remains an open problem until now. This paper focuses on measuring the numerical effectiveness of various choices of ɛ proposed in literature when used in image reconstruction problems. Condition number of the interpolation matrix, CPU-time and storage, and accuracy are common criteria being utilized. The results of the work shall provide useful information on selecting a ‘suitable and reliable choice of MQ-shape’ for further applications in general.