Abstract Thermal displacement errors are becoming more and more important in the precision engineering field where the specifications are ever increasing. This paper proposes a novel technique to compensate in-plane thermal displacement errors in a thin plate under a moving disturbance heat load. The displacement error is evaluated at the point of the moving heat load. The technique utilizes Thermal Modal Analysis (TMA) as a means to analyze the transient temperature distribution in the plate and estimate the thermal displacement field resulting from that temperature field. The temperature field is controlled by applying additional heat loads to the plate to control and eliminate some of the modes in the temperature domain which have the largest influence to the thermal displacement error. The theory of thermal modal analysis and the developed technique of controlling modes in the temperature domain are explained. The experimental setup and results are shown to validate the control of the thermal modes.