  We perform simulations in order to reveal the effect of observational and
physical parameters on the reconstruction of a spiral structure in an accretion
disk, using eclipse mapping techniques. We show that a model spiral structure
is smeared to a ``butterfly''-shape structure because of the azimuthal
smoothing effect of the technique. We isolate the effects of phase resolution,
signal-to-noise ratio and accurate centering of the eclipse at zero phase. We
further explore disk emissivity factors such as dilution of the spiral
structure by the disk light and relative spiral arm difference. We conclude
that the spiral structure can be satisfactorily recovered in accretion disk
eclipse maps with phase resolution |\Delta\phi| < 0.01, S/N>25 and zero phase
uncertainty |\Delta\phi| < 0.005, assuming the two spiral arms have similar
brightness and contribute > 30 % to the total disk light. Under the light of
the performed simulations, we present eclipse maps of the IP Peg accretion disk
reconstructed from eclipse light curves of emission lines and continuum during
the outburst of August 1994, where spiral shocks were detected with the aid of
Doppler tomography (Morales-Rueda et al. 2000). We discuss how the detection of
spirals shocks with eclipse mapping is improved with the use of
velocity-resolved eclipse light curves which do not include any contaminating
low-velocity emission.
