Methods and systems for 3D shape retrieval are described herein. An embodiment includes receiving a query 3D model, extracting a plurality of features of the query 3D model, comparing the features of the 3D query model against a plurality of features of one or more 3D models in a repository, calculating a similarity score based on the comparing step, ranking the 3D models based on the similarity score and returning one or more 3D models based on the ranking step. The embodiment further includes generating a representation of the query 3D model, calculating a correlation matching function between the representation of the query 3D model and representations of 3D models in the repository, determining a plurality of matching scores between the query 3D model and the 3D models in the repository for each rotational alignment of the 3D models and selecting the highest score from the plurality of matching scores based on the determining step.