Tire failure in mining operations can hazardous, resulting in financial and productivity losses. There are opportunities to improve tire monitoring systems by safely and remotely providing full-field measurements of tire properties. An optical fault detection system has been developed to investigate the feasibility of using digital image correlation to measure displacement and strain on a tire surface with the aim of detecting tire damage. This study defines metrics for damage visibility and examines the visibility of different damage types at multiple orientations, under various loading conditions in a laboratory setting. Internal and external damage was successfully detected from changes in surface strain. Knowledge gained from this investigation can be used to drive the future development of industrial tire monitoring solutions.