The invention provides a mesh segmentation based simplification method specific to the problem of detail loss generated in a simplification process of a textured model. In the simplification method, a geometrical model is partitioned into a plurality of sub-meshes according textures, normal lines and other appearance attributes of a model in a preprocessing process, the relevance among the meshes is reduced, an edge collapse simplification operation is executed inside sub-meshes, and finally, simplified results are merged for joint sealing treatment so as to form a complete simplified model. Because appearance attribute information is adopted to separate a high-frequency part of the model, information loss in a detail area is reduced, and the geometric details and the appearance attributes of the model are better preserved while preserving a model outline.