Reliable characterization of structural defects requires methods capable of resolving both directly observable surface damage and damage that is not visible from the inspected surface. This study presents two complementary non-contact, vision-based approaches for the detection and quantitative characterization of defects in structural components. The first approach employs high-resolution laser scanning to generate three-dimensional (3D) point clouds of damaged steel specimens. Comparative processing of measured and reference point clouds is used to localize damaged regions, quantify geometric loss, and transfer the measured defect geometry to a finite element representation. The second approach combines full-field surface deformation measurements obtained using three-dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC) with finite element model updating and topology optimization. In this inverse framework, measured surface response is used to infer subsurface abnormalities through their influence on the spatial distribution of structural response. Experimental steel-beam specimens containing controlled smooth defects and randomly distributed defects are used to evaluate the approaches. Comparisons with milling-based ground-truth measurements demonstrate that both methods can identify and quantify defect geometry, while providing complementary information for visible and subsurface damage assessment. The combined framework establishes a pathway toward high-fidelity, non-contact structural condition assessment and model updating for components with complex and irregular damage.
Accurate tree-level forest monitoring using laser scanning data requires reliable tree delineation, consistent tree correspondence across multitemporal point clouds, and accurate estimation of tree attributes and their change. Reconstructing tree growth in boreal forests is challenging due to the scarcity of historical stem-level data, propagation of errors from older sensors into change estimation, and growth rates with a magnitude of measurement uncertainty. This study investigates a framework for estimating individual tree diameter at breast height (DBH) and stem volume growth using 136 point clouds acquired between 2014--2025 with 11 scanners on airborne (ALS), mobile (MLS), and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) platforms across boreal forest test sites. Trees were delineated from an MLS point cloud using deep learning-based segmentation which was transferred to the remaining point clouds, resulting in reliable multitemporal tree correspondence. Stem curves were derived from MLS/TLS data, with ALS data used for height estimation, enabling DBH and volume estimation and time series. A height growth-based scaling model was used to reconstruct stem attributes across time and estimate growth. Results showed that modeled growth achieved higher agreement with manual growth estimates than differencing independently estimated attributes from point clouds. The modeled-manual 5- and 10-year growth RMSEs were 55--111\% and 26--67\% for DBH, and 31--87\% and 21--67\% for volume, respectively, depending on plot difficulty. The scaling model was temporally robust, with errors remaining stable or stabilizing after 5--6 years, reaching maximum RMSEs of 8--12\% for DBH and 12--23\% for volume after 12 years. Combining MLS/TLS-derived stem measurements with multitemporal ALS-derived heights provided a robust framework for individual tree growth estimation without requiring multiple under-canopy scans.