Soil pore structure is a comprehensive reflection of the shape, number and spatial distribution of soil pores. The complexity and heterogeneity of pore structure determine the processes of soil water movement, gas diffusion and biological activities. In recent years, the development of digital image technology has directly visualized and quantified pore structure, but the accuracy of pore extraction is still limited by sampling method, equipment resolution and segmentation technology. Based on the development history of existing soil pore research methods, taking image acquisition, image segmentation and quantitative analysis as the main line, this paper summarizes the basic principles, main steps, advantages and disadvantages of current commonly used pore research methods (indirect method and direct method), analyzes the segmentation technology of extracting pore structure from images, summarizes the common quantitative indicators of pore structure, and finally aims at the problems and shortcomings of existing research methods, the development direction of future research methods is prospected.