Polarization property has attracted much attention because it can be used for the inversion of the material characteristics and the three-dimensional morphology information of the object surface in the field of photoelectric detection. However, when using the diffuse reflection polarization property to solve the three-dimensional morphology, the zenith angle information of the surface normal and the degree of polarization have the one-to-one correspondence, which makes it widely applicable in complex lighting scenes. In this paper, we systematically analyzed the principle of diffuse reflection polarization three-dimensional imaging technology via the type of reflected light wave and its polarization characteristic model. Meanwhile, we described in detail about the current research progress of diffuse reflection polarization three-dimensional imaging technology, the exisiting foundation of the technology, and the future development direction.