Abstract: Construction and transmission of 3D tree models under network environments require not only fine model fidelity,but also high efficiency of real-time interaction.Because of the existing geometry-based or image-based 3D model simplifications unable to satisfy the model details and storage capacity requirements of 3D tree models,a novel simplification method of 3D tree model for web applications was proposed.This method extracts the skeleton nodes of branches of tree model,and simplifies braches by using non-uniform skeleton simplification method.Furthermore,it simplifies crowns of tree models by using crown textures and reconstructs them with convex hull based texture mapping,so as to improve the similarity of simplified 3D tree models.The applications show that this method can reduce storage capacity of model files,and improve the transmission efficiency of network on a basis of excellent visual quality.

Key words: 3D tree,Model simplification,Texture template,Visual perception