Design evaluation is an important means to improve design quality. In order to promote the display effect of 3D models of revolutionary cultural relics, the work aims to study the construction of the design evaluation index system and verify its application. Firstly, the preliminary evaluation index system was constructed through literature analysis by Nvivo software and manual interpretation and supplement. Secondly, the preliminary index system was screened by Delphi method and two rounds of questionnaire surveys. Thirdly, the index weight was calculated via analytic hierarchy process. Finally, a set of evaluation index system with 4 first level indexes, 12 second level indexes and 36 third level indexes was established and verified in an actual project. The 3D model display design of 9 "baron lantern" cultural relics was evaluated and applied and the ranking of the schemes and further optimization were completed. At last, through the questionnaire survey, the optimized results are compared with the original design scheme again, and it is verified that the optimized results improve the design quality compared with the original scheme, and have good consistency with the subjective evaluation results of the users. Therefore, the evaluation index system constructed is scientific, effective, and has good operability, which can help designers screen design schemes and provide a clear optimization direction.