Thousands of registered large concrete and embankment dams have now more than five decades of operation and age related problems. Structural safety condition assessment is the main aim of dam monitoring activities and a concern for authorities. Laser scanners combined with digital calibrated reflex cameras provide accurate and very dense 3D numerical models as well as spatially continuous high-resolution RGB information of the objects under study. These combined terrestrial imaging systems (CTIS) provide a huge amount of geometric and radiometric well structured data in a short period of time. A 3D scanning company, Artescan, and a research organization (LNEC, Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil, in Portugal) have been, since 2003, developing positional monitoring methodologies for embankment dams and assisted visual inspection methodologies for concrete dams. Interesting results have been achieved in what concerns positional accuracy, system reliability and cost-effectiveness of this approach to enhance dam monitoring capabilities. This paper presents different examples of the developed methodologies as applied to dam monitoring.