In the process of reconstruction of 3D textured models of revolution from images, the precise 3D shape of the revolution must be obtained in advance. This paper addresses the problem of recovering the 3D shape of revolution by symmetry property of revolution. A specially-designed rotary platform is used to obtain images of revolution and calculate image parameters at first, and then the topmost circle of the revolution is accurately reconstructed with a object-space reconstruction method. The rotation axis of revolution is calculated from the topmost circle of the revolution. The algorithm makes use of symmetry properties of surfaces of revolutions and their silhouette to rectify images so that the resulting silhouettes exhibits bilateral symmetry. Then the rectified image is then used to recover the contour generator and the object is reconstructed. Experimental results with real images are presented, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.