A pattern projection system includes a coherent light source, a repositionable DOE disposed to receive coherent light from said coherent light source and disposed to output at least one pattern of projectable light onto a scene to be imaged by an (x,y) two-dimensional optical acquisition system. Coherent light speckle artifacts in the projected pattern are reduced by rapidly controllably repositioning the DOE or the entire pattern projection system. Different projectable patterns are selected from a set of M patterns that are related to each other by a translation and/or rotation operation in two-dimensional cosine space. A resultant (x,y,z) depth map has improved quality and robustness due to projection of the selected patterns. Three-dimensional (x,y,z) depth data obtained from two-dimensional imaged data including despeckling is higher quality data than if projected patterns without despeckling were used.