Method for interferometric determination of the surface topography of a measurement object with the method steps of - Generating illumination light and reference light by means of at least one light source and illuminating the measurement object with the illumination light, - Merging the illumination light reflected by the measurement object as measurement light with the reference light, wherein an interference pattern is generated in a detection region, - Modifying the optical path length difference and/or phase difference between the measurement light and the reference light, - Detecting light intensities l p (z i ) of the interference pattern on a plurality of detector elements p of a multi-element detector in the detection region for at least two optical path length differences and/or phase differences modified by different amounts z i , - Determining the amount z p for the modification of the optical path length difference and/or phase difference for a plurality of detector elements p of the multielement detector , wherein, in each case, the optical path length difference and/or phase difference between the measurement light and the reference light reaches an explicitly and/or implicitly predetermined value for this detector element p , and - Determining the surface topography of the measurement object from the amounts z p determined for the different elements p of the multi-element detector , wherein, in addition to the light intensities l p (z i ), the light intensities l q (z i ) of at least one other detector element q of the multi-element detector are also used to determine the value z p assigned to the detector element p , characterized in that the value z p assigned to the detector element p is determined with the aid of an approximation of at least a part of the n-dimensional light intensity vectors (l p (z 1 ), l p (z 2 ) to l p (z n )) and l q (z 1 ), l q (z 2 ) to l q (z n )) provided by l p (z i ) and l q (z i ) or the vectors arising therefrom by projection and/or transformation. - Generating illumination light and reference light by means of at least one light source and illuminating the measurement object with the illumination light, - Merging the illumination light reflected by the measurement object as measurement light with the reference light, wherein an interference pattern is generated in a detection region, - Modifying the optical path length difference and/or phase difference between the measurement light and the reference light, - Detecting light intensities l p (z i ) of the interference pattern on a plurality of detector elements p of a multi-element detector in the detection region for at least two optical path length differences and/or phase differences modified by different amounts z i , - Determining the amount z p for the modification of the optical path length difference and/or phase difference for a plurality of detector elements p of the multielement detector , wherein, in each case, the optical path length difference and/or phase difference between the measurement light and the reference light reaches an explicitly and/or implicitly predetermined value for this detector element p , and - Determining the surface topography of the measurement object from the amounts z p determined for the different elements p of the multi-element detector , wherein, in addition to the light intensities l p (z i ), the light intensities l q (z i ) of at least one other detector element q of the multi-element detector are also used to determine the value z p assigned to the detector element p , characterized in that the value z p assigned to the detector element p is determined with the aid of an approximation of at least a part of the n-dimensional light intensity vectors (l p (z 1 ), l p (z 2 ) to l p (z n )) and l q (z 1 ), l q (z 2 ) to l q (z n )) provided by l p (z i ) and l q (z i ) or the vectors arising therefrom by projection and/or transformation. <EOS>