The paper presents selected methods used for estimation the unknown geometrical parameters of a spatial mechanism model, used to describe the position and orientation of the end-effector, for example the coordinates of the center points of spherical joints, link dimensions etc. These data are necessary when dealing with computer simulation of any mechanism. The parameters are estimated based on coordinate measurements of selected points, located on the real mechanism links, using a portable manipulator with serial structure composed of 6 revolute joints and a spherical probe, but other techniques of acquiring point coordinates are applicable as well. The described methods can be used in the cases of a disassembled link, an assembled mechanism and redundant data sets. The methods are characterized by accuracy and robustness in the presence of different levels of noise, stability with respect to degenerate data sets, and low computation time. Special attention is paid to the case when the wanted parameters are hard to measure directly. Numerical examples are presented dealing with 5-link mechanism used to guide front wheels of a car.