Touchless PACS: Gesture Control for Radiology

Here is the short answer. A touchless PACS workstation is an ordinary imaging workstation controlled by hand gestures instead of a shared mouse and keyboard. AirTouch creates one from the workstation and a standard RGB camera: it converts gestures into the mouse, keyboard, and touch input the viewer already understands, so it works with existing PACS, advanced visualization, and digital pathology viewers without integration. It is input software, not a medical device, and it is deployed in clinical settings today. Here is where it fits and how teams evaluate it.

Why go touchless at an imaging workstation?

• The sterile field. A scrubbed surgeon who needs to revisit imaging mid-procedure today has two options: break scrub and re-gown, or narrate "scroll down, no, back one" to a circulator at the workstation. Gesture control gives the scrubbed clinician direct command of the images from the sterile field, and the procedure keeps moving.

• Shared peripherals. Reading room and OR keyboards are touched by many hands between cleanings. A touchless workstation removes the shared surface instead of scheduling more disinfection.

• Glass and distance. A camera tracks hands through protective glass and from across the room, which keys and mice never will. Control no longer requires standing where the workstation is.

How does gesture control work with existing PACS viewers?

AirTouch operates at the operating system level. A pinch arrives at the viewer as a click, a drag as a drag, a mapped gesture as the keyboard shortcut your viewer already uses for window level, zoom, or series navigation. Because the viewer only ever sees standard input, nothing about the PACS deployment changes: no plugin, no API work, no revalidation of the viewer itself. That includes browser-based zero-footprint viewers, which accept the same clicks and keystrokes as installed clients. Gesture mappings save per profile, so a scroll-heavy stack review setup and a measurement-heavy setup can live side by side. Details on the PACS and medical imaging integration page.

Does it work with surgical gloves?

The hand tracking models are trained for gloved hands, including colored surgical gloves, and for the imperfect lighting of real clinical rooms, within reason. Patented intent detection separates the clinician deliberately controlling the screen from other movement in a busy room, so a passing colleague does not scroll your series. Some environments are edge cases, and a few may call for a specialized camera, which is exactly why our medical evaluations start with testing against your rooms, your gloves, and your viewers. Book a demo and we will test against your environment.

What does a touchless imaging setup look like?

A typical deployment is the existing workstation, the existing viewer, and one camera with a clear line of sight to where the clinician stands, a webcam on the display in most rooms. Latency runs around 50ms, fast enough that scrolling a stack feels attached to the hand. For rooms that need more reach or tighter conditions there are camera options, covered in our camera guide. Setup on a workstation takes minutes, which makes a single-room pilot the natural first step.

How do hospitals deploy it?

Gesture inference runs entirely on the workstation, so no video leaves the machine by default. Enterprise deployments add on-prem options, GDPR-compliant analytics, a signed DPA, and SLA. AirTouch runs on Windows and Linux, the platforms imaging workstations already live on, and because it is input software rather than a medical device, it slots into the IT review path rather than the clinical device path. Our medical solutions page covers the full picture, and the sterile operating room article goes deeper on the OR workflow.

Where to start

Medical teams almost always start with a demo against their own environment, because the interesting questions are specific: your glove colors, your room light, your viewer's shortcuts. Book a demo and bring the hardest room you have. If you just want to feel the interaction first, start a free trial on any workstation with a webcam.

Related: gesture control for medical environments, touchless control in the sterile OR, and gesture control and hand tracking software.