Abstract: A detection device for determining a topography of a vehicle environment comprises a camera unit which is configured to detect at least one image of the surroundings of the vehicle environment, wherein the respective image of the surroundings comprises pixels arranged at respective image coordinates of the image of the surroundings. It is provided that the detection device comprises an evaluation unit which is configured to process the respective image of the surroundings according to a predetermined height determination method, wherein the image of the surroundings in the predetermined height determination method is fed to a first artificial neural network which is trained to assign respective height values to the respective pixels of the respective image of the surroundings in a world coordinate system of the vehicle environment with respect to a predetermined horizontal plane.