The invention relates to an estimating method of the main curvature and the main direction of point cloud data, which comprises the following steps of: preprocessing, estimating a normal transversal curvature, fitting a Weingarten matrix, computing the characteristic value and the characteristic vector of the Weingarten matrix and computing the main curvature and the main direction. In the method, the main curvature and the main direction faithful to an original object are obtained only by utilizing the scanning data and the estimated normal vector of a laser scanner. The main curvature and the main direction are computed by the method through least square linear fitting and the characteristic value and the characteristic vector of the matrix, the algorithm is simple, the computing result is accurate, and the time complexity is highly effective. The method is called as a normal transversal fitting method, and the computing result thereof has important application value in the fields of virtual reality, computer games, natural scene simulation, urban landscape design, data compression, characteristic extraction, object 3D reconstruction and the like.