Abstract: For the limitations of skeleton extraction on discrete point models and low-resolution models, this paper presents a novel skeleton extraction approach for point models based on the attributes of surface and tangency. Firstly, the definition and the calculating method of the two attributes are given. And then, geometry contraction is done by surface smooth contraction and skeleton attraction. Finally, the center points after iteration contraction are connected, and the skeleton of the model is obtained. Experiment results show that the skeleton extracted from this approach could express the geometry and topology of original model better. Even if the model lacks connection information and in low-resolution, the approach could also get good skeleton.