A laser range-gated viewing experiment in the eye-safe spectral region is demonstrated where a semiconductor based laser illuminator is associated with a corresponding image detector able to operate in high frequency and high sensitivity shutter mode. After experimental validations of the camera developed for accumulation operation, a high power semiconductor based illuminator has been designed and realized. This technology can be used to develop efficient, compact and high average power SWIR illuminators. Images of different scenes were recorded in a test tunnel and the results are compared to those recorded simultaneously with a solid state based laser illuminator working in flash mode. Both results are similar in terms of image intensity whereas semiconductor based recordings exhibits lower speckle noise and better homogeneity. These results open new opportunities for compact and efficient SWIR active imaging systems.