Since the first shape-form-shading technique was developed by Horn in the early 1970s, many different approaches have been continuously emerging in the past three decades. Some of them improve existing techniques, while others are completely new approaches. Using the image reflectance equation, they estimate the 3-D shape of an object utilizing adequate constraints. Each algorithm applies different constraints such as brightness, smoothness, and integrability to solve the shape-from-shading problem. Especially for symmetric objects, a symmetry constraint is proposed to improve the performance of existing shape-from-shading algorithm in this paper. The symmetry constraint is imposed to a conventional algorithm and then the improvement in the performance of 3-D shape reconstruction is proved by quantitatively comparing the depth and gradient errors.