In order to reduce the influence of temperature on the image point coordinates of industrial cameras in visual measurement, the image point drift caused by the self-heating of the camera was studied, and a compensation method for the thermal image point drift of industrial cameras was proposed. The finite element simulation analysis of the industrial camera model through Ansys Workbench shows that the self-heating of the industrial camera will cause the imaging optical path change and sensor expansion change, quantitatively the influence of the optical path change and sensor expansion on the image point coordinates was analyzed, and the image point drift compensation model was established. A large number of experiments have shown that the image point drift error compensated by the model is reduced from 0.4-0.6 pixel to 0.1-0.2 pixel, which is equivalent to the image point drift suppression effect achieved by hardware thermal control. However, compared with the thermal control device, the method of using the model for compensation has obvious advantages of simple structure and low cost. The temperature compensation model proposed in this research provides a theoretical basis for reducing the image point drift error caused by the self-heating of the camera in the visual measurement.