This paper is the first of two companion papers concerning the analysis and design of a pneumatic vibration isolation system. The design optimization of the pneumatic vibration isolation system is required for the reduction of cost, endeavor and time, and it needs modeling and calculation algorithm. The nonlinear models are devised from the fluid mechanical expression for components of the system and the calculation algorithm is derived from the mathematical relationship between the models. It is shown that the orifice makes the nonlinear property of the transmissibility curve that the resonant frequency changes by the amplitude of excited vibration. Linearization of the nonlinear models is tried to reduce elapsed time and truncation error accumulation and to enable the transmissibility calculation of the system with multi damping chambers. The equivalent mechanical models generated by linearization clarify the function of each component of the system and lead to the linearized transfer function that can give forth to the transmissibility exactly close to that of nonlinear models. The modified successive under-relaxation method is developed to calculate the linearized transfer function.