Recently, the online three-dimensional(3D) digital museum is becoming an emerging method for the protection and resource sharing of the heritage. However, the size of 3D profile data obtained by 3D scanning techniques is too large for 3D digital museums to properly load and display in real time. To solve this problem, a representation method of 3D profile data based on gray value encoding is proposed. On the basis of the virtual fringe projection system, the gray values are encoded into an 8 bit gray image or an 8 bit gray image along with a binary image according to the resolution of the virtual camera in the horizontal direction, and then the images are projected as projection fringes. By utilizing the virtual camera to capture the projection fringes that have been distorted, 3D profile data are represented as images. The experimental results show that the loading and display time of the data within the proposed method is reduced by more than 98% compared with the traditional 3D data format, and it is very suitable for the real-time loading and display of digital museums based on 3D profile data.