A method for characterization of respiratory characteristics based on a voxel model includes: successively capturing multiple frames of depth image of a thoracoabdominal surface of human body and modelling the multiple frames of depth image in 3D to obtain multiple frames of voxel model in time series; traversing voxel units of the multiple frames of voxel model and extracting a volumetric characteristic and areal characteristic of the multiple frames of voxel model; acquiring a minimum common voxel bounding box of the multiple frames of voxel model; describing spatial distribution of the multiple frames of voxel model in the form of probability and arranging the probabilities of the minimum voxel bounding boxes of individual frames of voxel model to construct a sample space of super-high dimensional vectors; reducing the dimensions of the sample space to obtain intrinsic parameters; obtaining a characteristic variable capable of characterizing the voxel model.