A method for transforming solid, three-dimensional image data into three-dimensional surface data first smoothes the surface of the solid image by removing extraneous voxels both attached to main surface of the solid image as well as extraneous voxels about the main image before the surface transformation. Once the solid image is transformed into a surface image, the method again cleans the surface by removing any significantly spiked structures that appear out of place when considered with respect to the surrounding topography. The amount of data required to render the surface image is reduced by removing surface facets that fall within a planar threshold of the surrounding topography. The topography is also compressed in local areas to bring the topography toward a median level. The method may further cycle to attempt to reduce additional surface facets that may fall now within the threshold limit.