The present invention relates to operating a camera-based tracking system. In order to provide accurate tracking at an earlier stage, a control device (10) for operation of a camera-based tracking system is provided. The control device comprises a controller (12) and a control signal output (14). The controller is configured to generate at least one operation signal for the tracking system that comprises, at least during a starting phase of the tracking system, at least one calibration compensation instruction. The at least one calibration compensation instruction comprises instructions for at least one of the group of: i) actively adjusting a temperature of the camera-based tracking system, and ii) adapting a calibration-related camera output of the camera-based tracking system, which camera output is used for a tracking calculation. The control signal output is configured to provide the at least one operation signal to the tracking system. In one approach, a pre-heating is provided in order to achieve (steady) calibration state by providing a control signals to the cameras for operation in a high thermal energy production mode. In another approach, the calibration is provided as dynamic calibration model that allows a calibration also for states of the system outside the steady state.