The kinematic analysis of Stewart platform manipulator(SPM) is carried out in order to reduce the calculation time for its forward kinematic solution when the iterative numerical method is employed. The kinematic equations for three substructures of the 6-3 SPM are newly derived by introducing Denavit-Hartenberg link parameters and using kinematic constraints associated with the SPM and substructure kinematics. It is shown that the forward kinematics can be easily solved from three nonlinear equations with three unknown variables only, leading to a great reduction in calculation time.