Abstract: A method is proposed to compute partial shape similarity between two 3D models based on matching of all point-to-point pairs on the surfaces.The parameters in the shape matching are determined independently by two separate processes to avoid huge computational costs required in general shape matching methods.The rotation parameters are derived from matching of surface normals,and the translation and scaling parameters are obtained by using the structure relationship between tangent planes at the matched points.The experimental results show the feasibility of the method.