Thermal deformation of a machine tool structure can be evaluated from the analysis of the whole temperature field. However, it is extremely inefficient and impossible to know the whole temperature field by measuring temperatures at every point. So, the temperature estimator is required, which can predict the whole temperature field from the temperatures of just a few points. In this paper, a 1-dimensional heat transfer problem is modeled with modal analysis and state space equations. And then the state observer is designed to estimate the intensity of heat source and the whole temperature field in real time. The reliability of the estimator is verified by making comparison between solutions obtained from the proposed method and the exact solutions of examples. The proposed method is applied to the estimation of temperature distribution in a ball screw system.