Improved systems and techniques for imaging bar code processing. One or more cameras are deployed in a bar code scanner, oriented so that an imaging device of each camera is oriented such that rows of data elements in the imaging device are oriented nonorthogonally with respect to a preferred orientation of a bar code. One or more imaging devices captures bar code data representing light and dark spaces of the bar code. The captured bar code data is analyzed to create one or more rows of data completely transecting the bar code, and the rows of data are processed to generate a scan signal which is in turn processed to extract bar code data.