In structure inspections, applications of optical techniques are rare, but the advantages of a non-contact, full field technique using a simple apparatus are attractive. The main requirements for structure inspection are the full-field strain measurement with the required precision and on-site measurement ability. The digital correlation method (DCM), a new optical deformation measurement tool, can satisfy all of the requirements for structure inspection. A smoothing algorithm which can greatly improve the strain measurement precision, and a 3-D DCM have been developed in this paper. For verifying this improvement, a comparison of strain measurements by computer-simulated speckle images has been carried out. Additionally, three structure inspection examples that cover typical materials and structure styles are presented: the interface shear stress distribution for reinforced concrete piles bedded on rock, the 3-D strain distribution of a composite vessel structure, and stresses in a hookup that connects two steel bridge structures. All the examples show that the new structural inspection tool is exemplary and illustrates the obvious advantages of this optical non-destructive technique.