Abstract Optical scanning instruments require sampling and reconstruction with high accuracy and low computational cost. T-splines have recently been developed that allow significant reductions in the number of control parameters by overcoming some of the topological constraints of B-splines and NURBS. As a subset of T-splines, analysis-suitable T-splines (ASTS) show promise due to the linear independence and partition of unity of their basis functions. In this paper, a computationally efficient ASTS fitting algorithm for freeform surface reconstruction is proposed. This algorithm starts with adaptive construction of an initial analysis-suitable T-mesh according to the distribution of high-curvature feature points. A local refinement and local optimisation algorithm of the analysis-suitable T-mesh is then iteratively performed until a preset accuracy condition is satisfied. Our experimental results show that the proposed ASTS fitting can produce over 50% root-mean-square reconstruction error reduction compared to NURBS fitting, with the same number of control parameters. The computing efficiency of the proposed algorithm is equivalent to or higher than that for simple T-spline fitting. Fast derivative analysis of the ASTS has also been carried out, where two automatic intelligent sampling design methods have been developed, namely element area sampling and element curvature sampling. Up to 50% reconstruction error reduction is observed when compared to uniform and statistically optimised sampling designs. With the novel reconstruction and compatible intelligent sampling design techniques, freeform surface measurement accuracy and efficiency could be effectively improved using coordinate measuring machines.