Method for determining damage to a vehicle using an optical detection unit for three-dimensional detection of a vehicle surface and an evaluation unit connected to the optical detection unit, with which data of the three-dimensionally detected surface can be processed and spatial coordinate data of the three-dimensionally detected surface can be determined, characterized in that the evaluation unit has a
database in which vehicle model data, comprising
vehicle type data, standard spatial coordinate data of the
vehicle type, a process data
record comprising damage data, repair data and optionally process
supplementary data, wherein the damage data includes
vehicle type data, area coordinate data of the spatial coordinate data of a damaged area of the surface of a vehicle, deformation depth data, wherein the deformation depth data exhibits the largest negative difference between the depth coordinate data of the spatial coordinate data in the damaged area and the standard spatial coordinate data stored in the
database, wherein the Repair data, spare parts data and working
time data, and optional additional process data, such as repair cost data, vehicle owner data, mileage data and damage
event data, can be stored; that in a
condition assessment process, the surface of the vehicle in a damaged area is optically captured in three dimensions using the optical detection unit, the spatial coordinate data of the damage area and from this the area coordinate data of the spatial coordinate data of the damage area are determined, from the spatial coordinate data of the damage area and the standard spatial coordinate data of the damage area the deformation depth data are determined and the area coordinate data and the associated deformation depth data are stored as damage data in a process data
record;that in an evaluation and assignment process, the evaluation unit performs a
database query for existing process
data records with such existing area coordinate data that correspond to the area coordinate data of the damage area and, if existing process
data records with corresponding area coordinates are found, these or parts thereof are output, whereby optionally the output of existing process
data records is ordered according to the degree of correspondence between the deformation depth data determined in the damage area and the deformation depth data stored in existing process data records.