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The evaluation of slope stability of a three-dimensional slope requires identifying the critical slip surface with the minimum factor of safety, which is a complex optimization problem. Failure to identify the critical slip surface can lead to unconservative conclusions about the stability of a slope. This paper proposes a novel 3D surface-altering optimization method, which iteratively alters the geometry of a 3D slip surface to find the critical slip surface representing the minimum factor of safety in a slope. The geometry of the slip surface is defined via nonuniform rational basis spline (NURBS) curves formed over a plan grid of control points. The proposed method includes a series of five subroutines that apply various forms of transformations to the control points. These subroutines include minimization problems, which determine the optimal transformation parameters for minimizing the obtained factor of safety of the …