Abstract: Creating a sufficient feature base for all of the viewpoints or extracting an invariable feature of different viewpoints are the common methods for 3D target recognition. They share the shortcomings of big size feature base, enormous computation and low recognition rate. It is almost impossible to find the recognition feature of robustness. The method for establishing the 3D naval vessel models feature base with clustering technology was studied. The affinity propagation (AP)clustering algorithm requires no initializing cluster centers and it is suitable to cluster view points space. Experiment of AP was done using computer based on the Hu moments, and the clustering results validied the method by Silhouette index.