A novel real time 3D-data acquisition system for highly dynamic scenes is presented. It is based on colour coded structured light using a single projection pattern. Existing systems utilising this approach are usually limited to scenes with neural surfaces or not very robust. The presented system overcomes these shortcomings by using an innovative approach for recognising the projected pattern based on colour edges. The low-cost system is integrated using off-the-shelf components only. Experimental results are presented including a report on the successful use of the system with a 3D gesture recognition application.