Depth-sensing apparatus includes a laser, which is configured to emit pulses of optical radiation toward a scene, and one or more detectors, which are configured to receive the optical radiation that is reflected from points in the scene and to output signals indicative of respective times of arrival of the received radiation. Control and processing circuitry is coupled to drive the laser to emit a sequence of the pulses in a predefined temporal pattern that specifies irregular intervals between the pulses in the sequence, and to correlate the output signals with the temporal pattern in order to find respective times of flight for the points in the scene.