To simplify the 3D color head dataset acquired from 3D color laser scanner, a new vertex merging mesh simplification algorithm based on region segmentation is presented. The algorithm can be divided into two stages--region segmentation and mesh simplification. After region segmentation of 3D color head dataset, vertexes are labeled as region-boundary vertexes, which can only be merged into region-boundary vertexes and inner vertexes. Using region-weighted error metrics, the algorithm generates continuous levels of detail. Results of several experiments show the potential of our method for 3D color head dataset.