Method for illuminating a vehicle environment of a motor vehicle comprising an illumination device and a detection device, wherein the illumination device is configured to at least partly illuminate a solid angle region of the vehicle environment with different illumination patterns (1, 10, 18, 20), in particular with visible light, wherein the illumination patterns (1, 10, 18, 20) each predefine illumination intensities for different solid angle subregions (2, 3, 19) of the solid angle region, comprising the following steps: - illuminating the vehicle environment with a first of the illumination patterns (1, 18) by means of the illumination device, - detecting, by means of the detection device, a light pattern resulting from the illumination of the vehicle environment with the first illumination pattern (1, 18), - selecting a second of the illumination patterns (10, 20) depending on the detected light pattern, and - illuminating the vehicle environment with the second illumination pattern (10, 20) by means of the illumination device, wherein depending on the detected light pattern - it is recognized whether there is an unevenness and/or an obstacle in the solid angle region and/or - a class is allocated to a recognized unevenness and/or a recognized obstacle by means of a classification algorithm and/or - a position (9, 15) of the recognized unevenness and/or of the recognized obstacle is determined, wherein the selection of the second illumination pattern (10, 20) depends on the class and/or the position (9, 15) and/or on whether there is an unevenness and/or an obstacle in the solid angle region, characterized in that height information is in each case determined depending on the first illumination pattern (1, 18) and the detected light pattern (7, 13) for sections (8, 14) of a driving plane located in the solid angle region, and a height profile of the driving plane is thus extracted from the detected light pattern (7, 13), the recognition and/or classification of the unevenness and/or of the obstacle and/or the determination of the position (9, 15) being effected depending on the height information. - illuminating the vehicle environment with a first of the illumination patterns (1, 18) by means of the illumination device, - detecting, by means of the detection device, a light pattern resulting from the illumination of the vehicle environment with the first illumination pattern (1, 18), - selecting a second of the illumination patterns (10, 20) depending on the detected light pattern, and - illuminating the vehicle environment with the second illumination pattern (10, 20) by means of the illumination device, wherein depending on the detected light pattern - it is recognized whether there is an unevenness and/or an obstacle in the solid angle region and/or - a class is allocated to a recognized unevenness and/or a recognized obstacle by means of a classification algorithm and/or - a position (9, 15) of the recognized unevenness and/or of the recognized obstacle is determined, wherein the selection of the second illumination pattern (10, 20) depends on the class and/or the position (9, 15) and/or on whether there is an unevenness and/or an obstacle in the solid angle region, characterized in that height information is in each case determined depending on the first illumination pattern (1, 18) and the detected light pattern (7, 13) for sections (8, 14) of a driving plane located in the solid angle region, and a height profile of the driving plane is thus extracted from the detected light pattern (7, 13), the recognition and/or classification of the unevenness and/or of the obstacle and/or the determination of the position (9, 15) being effected depending on the height information.