A system and method for forming an image of a target with a laser detection and ranging system. The system includes a laser transmitter and an array detector. The method includes transmitting a sequence of laser pulses; forming a plurality of point clouds, each point cloud corresponding to a respective transmitted laser pulse, each point in the point cloud corresponding to a point on a surface of the target; grouping the plurality of point clouds into a plurality of point cloud groups according to a contiguous subset of the sequence of laser pulses; forming a plurality of average point clouds, each of the average point clouds being the average of a respective group of the plurality of point cloud groups; and forming a first estimate of a six-dimensional velocity of the target, including three translational velocity components and three angular velocity components, from the plurality of average point clouds.