With the development of network and information technology, it is highly desirable to create 3D geoscience applications in the network environment. However, construction of web-based 3D terrain model is one of the foundation works of 3D geoscience applications in the network environment. This paper presents a new method of constructing large-scale 3D terrain model based on Extensible 3D (X3D). In this way, we first use Geospatial components of X3D to build 3D terrain model by using DEM as the data source, then we publish the 3D terrain model to the internet with a architecture of Brower/Server and plug-in technology. To promote the display performance of large-scale 3D terrain model, We presents an approach that using the Level of Detail (LOD) technology to simplify the 3D terrain model. The application results show that the method this paper presented has advantage of easy to integrate with other network system, thereby easy to realize data sharing and interoperation; the method also has virtues of fast display speed, high ability of interaction. It’s an effective method for constructing large-scale 3D terrain model in network environment.