Using local peripheral devices with remote machine

[keroro7788]

Please let me know if anyone has insight on this. My particular use case is I have multiple desktop PCs at home capable of handling the spec requirements of my intraoral scanner. But I move around to several offices to work and not every office has a computer capable of handling the system requirements. i7-8700K and GTX1060 or above etc... 

 

The most common solution is purchasing a gaming laptop to use with these scanners. But I wonder if it's possible to have one of my computer at home act as kind of like a virtual machine that I can access the prowess of remotely from an office computer that has the scanner attached. 

 

Hopefully what I'm saying makes sense

 

I have used parsec remotely to play games remotely for a few years now and I like the concept of being able to use my desktops at home without having to utilize cloud gaming services on my more lightweight travel devices. Basically I'm wondering if I can utilize a similar concept for my work as well.

[ajbri]

How does the intraoral scanner connect to the computer at home?

Is it a networked device?

A USB device?
Depending on required bandwidth and whether you can VPN in to your home network you may be able to use something like a USB over IP piece of software/hardware:

https://www.eltima.com/list-of-best-usb-over-ip-software/

 

[keroro7788]

That is basically what I want but reversed; the scanner will be attached to my laptop but I want to run the scanning software that stitches the images together via my desktops at home. Not sure if that can be done.

[Needfuldoer]

Are there any special security precautions you have to account for, since this is generating patient medical data?

 

If you have a VPN back to the network where your main PC is, you might be able to funnel the scanner through RDP.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/enterprise/manage-rdp-device-redirections

 

Of course, upload bandwidth may be a concern at the remote sites.

[keroro7788]

You bring up two great points. As far as security it should be fine since the scans don't have identifier. The way I've been doing my scans everything is connected via patient id numbers. No personal identifiers are attached to individual scans. Only way is to look in the main management software to find the specific patients. I'm primarily using it to generate STL files for labs. 

 

But the upload bandwidth is definitely a concern at some of the offices. I've used RDP before with some cloud based health management systems and they were way too laggy for me. Nonetheless this seems like a possibility. Thank you!