A system and method for a scalable depth sensor. The scalable depth sensor having an emitter, a receiver, and a processor. The emitter is configured to uniformly illuminate a scene within a field-of-view of the emitter. The receiver including a plurality of detectors, each detector configured to capture depth and intensity information corresponding to a subset of the field-of-view. The a processor connected to the detector and configured to selectively sample a subset of the plurality of the detectors in accordance with compressive sensing techniques, and provide an image in accordance with an output from the subset of the plurality of the detectors, the image providing a depth and intensity image corresponding to the field-of-view of the emitter.