Due to the popularity of 3D graphics in animation and games, usage of 3D geometry deformable models increases dramatically. Despite their growing importance, these models are difficult and time consuming to build. A distance learning system for the construction of these models could greatly facilitate students to learn and practice at different time and geographical locations. In such a system, an important component is the search engine, which serves as both the source of teaching materials and a platform for sharing resources. Although there have been a lot of works on text and multimedia retrieval, search engines for 3D models are still in its infant stage. In this article, we investigate two important issues: feature analysis, which affects the general usage of a system, and speed, which affects the number of concurrent users. Our method offers a mechanism to extract, index, match and efficiently retrieve features from these models. (Contains 2 tables and 7 figures.)