We present a new photoclinometric reconstruction method based on the deformation of a 3D mesh. The optimization process of our method relies on a maximum likelihood estimation with a density function measuring discrepancies between observed images and the correspondingsynthetic images calculated from the progressively deformed 3D mesh. An input mesh is necessary and can be obtained from other methods or created by implementing a multiresolution scheme. We present a 3D shape model of an asteroid obtained by this method and compare it with the models obtained with two high-resolution 3D reconstruction techniques, stereophotogrammetry, and stereophotoclinometry.