A non-contact sensor system measures distance from a reference plane to many remote points on the surface of an object. The set of points at which range is measured lie along a straight line (N points) or are distributed over a rectangular plane (M.times.N points). The system is comprised of a pattern generator to produce a 1.times.N array of time/space coded light rays, optionally a means such as a rotating mirror to sweep the coded light rays orthogonally by steps, a linear array camera to image subsets of the light rays incident on the object surface, and a high speed range processor to determine depth by analyzing one-dimensional scan signals. The range camera output is a one-dimensional profile or a two-dimensional area range map, typically for inspection and robotic vision applications.