Proposed in this paper is a mesh deformation method based on surface control,which takes into consideration the advantages of differential-domain mesh editing methods in terms of detail preserving and the arbitrary topology adaptability of subdivision surfaces. In this method,based on the discrete Poisson equation of manifold grids,a subdivision surface attached to a specified mesh deformation region is designed as the deformation-controlling surface. The deformation-controlling surface is mapped into the gradient field modification for the deformation region meshes. Finally,a mesh model with deformation is reconstructed based on the Poisson equation. The proposed deformation method overcomes the shortcoming of the traditional parametric spline surfaces in terms of attaching the objects with arbitrary topologies. Moreover,it can effectively preserve the geometric details of an object.