Abstract: Mesh simplification of 3D models for computer vision applications should preserve its shape, topology and other attribute values of the object. This calls for a vision system to be effective in the presentation, description, recognition and understanding of the object. A mesh simplification algorithm with features of 3D edge preservation by applying edge operations, edge collapse and edge split to the whole surface mesh is proposed. The maximum asymmetric distance between two meshes is calculated as the shape change measure. The proposed algorithm is able to reduce a number of faces while preserving the object's shape, its topology and 3D edge features. The algorithm also distributes the vertices of the mesh evenly over the surface of the object.