Focus on the phase reconstruction from three phase-shifting interferograms with unknown phase shifts, an advanced principal component analysis method is proposed. First, use a simple subtraction operation among interferograms, two intensity difference images are obtained easily. Second, set the center region of the data of intensity difference images to zero, and then construct a covariance matrix to obtain a transformation matrix. Third, two principal components of interferograms can be determined by the Hotelling transform and then phase can be calculated from the two normalized principal components by an arctangent function. By means of the simulation calculation and the experimental research, it is proved that the phase with high precision can be obtained rapidly by the proposed algorithm.