The invention discloses a virtual-prototype-based sampling simulation method for an articulated coordinate measuring machine. The method is characterized in that a six-degree-freedom articulated coordinate measuring machine virtual prototype is constructed in mechanical system dynamic analysis software; rotation pair units are added to all joints of the virtual prototype, a ball pair unit is arranged at the top of a measuring head and a constraint measuring head is arranged at a sampling point, so that construction of a single-point virtual prototype is completed; a first joint, a second joint, a third joint, a fourth joint, a fifth joint, and a sixth joint are selected successively as driving joints and make rotation in a stepping mode according a set angle and a set step pitch to drive other joints to make rotation, so that the virtual prototype can have different attitudes; and six joint angle in a single-point multi-attitude mode are collected and thus a round coding device measurement value is obtained. With known error characteristics of the six round coding devices and the round coding device measurement value in a multi-attitude mode of the sampling point, calculation is carried out to obtain a measurement error of the point due to an angle measurement error; and then a method for analyzing a single-point measurement error is popularized to the whole space, so that enough data samples can be used for carrying out an optimal measurement zone analysis.