三维建模是计算机视觉和计算机图形学领域中一个基本的问题，人脸借助其特有的普遍性和易用性成为众多先进三维建模算法的实验平台。但是由于人脸的复杂性、易变性，建立逼真的三维人脸模型成为众多研究者挑战的课题。本文分析了三维人脸建模的研究内容和研究难点，总结了1990年以来出现的最新方法和进展，从三维数据的获取、标准三维人脸建模、特定三维人脸建模及应用等三维建模的几个主要环节进行了分类综述，重点介绍了一些主要算法的基本思路和最新进展，并对该领域的研究热点和方向作了较为详细的分析。

D modeling is currently one of the most important issues in computer vision and computer graphics. Human faces are so common and reachable that many new algorithms are first tested on the face data. Also, due to the complexity and flexibility of human faces, many researchers have taken on the challenge of building realistic 3D face models. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of recent developments of 3D face modeling and keeps up with the latest research mainly from 1990 to now. Different from previous reviews, this paper puts emphasis on four major issues involved in a general frame work of 3D face modeling, i.e. 3D capture, generic 3D face modeling, individual face model generation and its application. This paper focuses more on overall methods and general characteristics involved in above four issues. To provide more detailed discussions, each issue is accordingly divided into categories of approach and various main methods proposed in each issue are clearly discussed to examine the state-of-the-art in human face modeling. Based on the discussion and analysis, this paper tries to summarize the intrinsic principles and common methodologies. Finally, some detailed discussions on research topics and future direction on 3D face modeling are provided.