The present invention relates to the use of a camera and a structured light pattern in a platenless document imaging system (1) to capture the image of a page or of a bound book together with depth information that can be inferred from the light pattern. The imaging system (1) comprises a support surface (12) for a document (30) to be imaged, a light stripe projector (4) arranged to project a plurality of diverging sheets of light that extend from the projector (4) towards the support surface (12) for forming a series of stripes across the document (30), a camera (2) having a detector array (22) for capturing an image of the document (30) and of light stripes projected onto the document (30), a processor (25) arranged to receive (23) from the detector array (22) data representative of images of the document (30) and of the light stripes and to calculate therefrom a three-dimensional profile of the document (30) relative to a reference surface, characterised in that the relative divergence of adjacent sheets of light varies laterally across the sheets so that the stripes are concentrated where the divergence is relatively low.