A method is described for switching smoothly between rendering algorithms as required by the amount of visible surface detail. The result will be more realism with less computation for displaying objects whose surface detail can be described by one or more bump maps. The three rendering algorithms considered are a BRDF, bump mapping, and displacement mapping. The bump mapping has been modified to make it consistent with the other two. For a given viewpoint, one of these algorithms will show a better trade-off between quality, computation time, and aliasing than the other two. The decision as to which algorithm is appropriate is a function of distance, viewing angle, and the frequency of bumps in the bump map.