Abstract: Objective To reconstruct the tree stem surface model. Methods A three-dimensional stem surface reconstruction algorithm based on cylindrical projection was presented. A number of consecutive slices were viewed as the reconstruction units. A cylinder was constructed by the centroid and diameter of the reconstruction unit. The stem points of reconstruction unit were transformed into cylindrical points, and then the cylindrical points were unfolded extendedly to planar points. The surface of reconstruction unit was reconstructed according to the connection among points in Delaunay triangulation created from planar point. The whole stem surface was obtained by connecting reconstructed surface of adjacent reconstruction unit. Results The experiment based on the stem point set of the barks of three tree species with different roughness showed that the reconstructed surface by proposed algorithm can showed information labeled in field work clearly and can exhibit the roughness characteristic of stem bark. By comparing with other three surface reconstruction algorithms, the proposed algorithm showed better visualization effect. Through quantitative analysis of diameter extracting from reconstructed surface, and comparing with the diameter by tape diameter in field work, the RMSE value of diameter extracting surface reconstructed by proposed algorithm was 0.14 cm and the surface reconstructed by proposed algorithm was more accurate than the algorithm of tangent based. Conclusion The present method is a simple, efficient and accurate one for stem surface reconstruction without calculating the normal vector and needs fewer surface triangles. It can effectively exhibit the surface features of the stem. The proposed algorithm was suitable for surface reconstruction, exact visualization of the stem and extracting stem parameters in an exact way.