Abstract: B-spline surface skinning is a commonly used tool in surface modeling.Huge amounts of control points will be introduced in the skinned surface by traditional skinning approach.This paper proposes an efficient approximating skinning algorithm for constructing B-spline surface based on Piegl's approach.By a more precise estimation of maximum value of a B-spline basis function and utilizing of the local support property of B-spline basis function,the control points of a set of compatible B-spline curves are reduced,which makes the skinning algorithm more effective.Under the same error bound,experimental results showed that our algorithm can reduce more control points than Piegl's.