A new mesh optimization framework for 3D triangular surface meshes is presented, which formulates the task as an energy minimization problem in the same spirit as in Hoppe et al. (SIGGRAPH’93: Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, 1993). The desired mesh properties are controlled through a global energy function including data attached terms measuring the fidelity to the original mesh, shape potentials favoring high quality triangles, and connectivity as well as budget terms controlling the sampling density. The optimization algorithm modifies mesh connectivity as well as the vertex positions. Solutions for the vertex repositioning step are obtained by a discrete graph cut algorithm examining global combinations of local candidates. Results on various 3D meshes compare favorably to recent state-of-the-art algorithms. Applications consist in optimizing triangular meshes and in simplifying meshes, while maintaining high mesh quality. Targeted areas are the improvement of the accuracy of numerical simulations, the convergence of numerical schemes, improvements of mesh rendering (normal field smoothness) or improvements of the geometric prediction in mesh compression techniques