The invention discloses a three-dimensional terrain simplification algorithm based on high-precision DEM data, comprising the following steps: 1) quadtree data structure design, 2) calculating the viewpoint-independent error of the irregular triangular network, 3) quadtree node Subdivision, 4) Terrain simplifies error judgment. Compared with the common DEM, this algorithm has a special design for the quadtree data structure. After calculating the viewpoint-independent error of the irregular triangulation, the error value is further subdivided, and further error judgments are made, and the establishment of a large-scale, large-scale real-time, interactive virtual terrain While the environment is simplified, the complexity of the nodes is simplified by calculating the importance measure of each node, thereby improving the efficiency of terrain rendering, and the terrain details of the obtained effect map are detailed and real.