Meet the Omnivore: Developer Builds Bots With NVIDIA Omniverse and Isaac Sim

Editor’s take note: This write-up is a part of our Meet the Omnivore collection, which characteristics particular person creators and developers who use NVIDIA Omniverse to speed up their 3D workflows and build digital worlds.


Antonio Serrano-Muñoz

Although nonetheless in grad school, Antonio Serrano-Muñoz has served author papers spanning planetary gravities, AI-run analysis of rheumatoid arthritis and robots that precisely keep track of millimetric-sized walkers, like ants.

Now, the Ph.D. pupil in used robotics at Mondragon College in northern Spain, is applying robotics and AI in remanufacturing to tackle difficulties of climate change and air pollution.

In brief, Serrano-Muñoz is occupied exploring special means to apply technological know-how to complicated, genuine-environment concerns — and, in his free time, he would make extensions for NVIDIA Omniverse, a system for authentic-time 3D design collaboration and earth simulation.

Omniverse Extensions are main creating blocks that help any individual to develop and prolong the operation of Omniverse Apps to satisfy the particular requires of their workflows with just a couple of lines of Python code.

Serrano-Muñoz has produced 6 open up-resource Omniverse Extensions that can be accessed on GitHub, a single of which enhances the abilities of NVIDIA Isaac Sim, an Omniverse-driven software framework for making photorealistic, bodily precise virtual environments in which to create, educate and simulate AI robots.

“Since the starting of my Ph.D. studies, I determined to get the job done with Isaac Sim to simulate robots,” Serrano-Muñoz said. “It presents a highly effective, true-time simulation platform with an ultra-sensible physics engine and graphics — as very well as a clear, basic software programming interface that tends to make it easy to interact with the whole system.”

Omniverse for Robotics Simulation

Serrano-Muñoz has pursued robotics for as very long as he can keep in mind. Developing up in Cuba, he normally fiddled with electronics, and he fell deeper in really like with technologies when he began coding in higher education.

“Robots can support humans with arduous, substantial-precision, repetitive and occasionally hazardous duties,” Serrano-Muñoz stated. “They have the probable to increase our life, and I hope my get the job done improvements robotics in a way that enables us to make a far better present and realize a much better foreseeable future.”

He thinks Omniverse is vital to his doctoral experiments in used robotics.

“Performing serious-time, graphically real looking simulations of robotics environments wasn’t doable before Omniverse,” he stated. “The platform opens the doorway to a new era of innovative improvements in robotics, simulation and true-time collaboration.”

Omniverse back links professionals of all varieties — engineers, designers, information creators — for the enhancement of simulation techniques, he additional. Essential for this is Universal Scene Description (USD), an open up resource 3D scene description and extensible file framework serving as the common language for digital worlds.

“USD performs an significant function in the approach of authoring, composing and examining a hierarchically arranged scene to produce and manipulate its rendering aspects and objects,” Serrano-Muñoz said.

Extending Omniverse for Isaac Sim

Employing NVIDIA Omniverse, the developer has made robot simulations for industrial use situations and a digital twin of Mondragon University’s laboratory for robotics prototyping.


A electronic twin of a bench in Mondragon University’s robotics lab, designed with NVIDIA Omniverse.

And although functioning on such assignments, Serrano-Muñoz preferred to combine with Isaac Sim a instrument he was now acquainted with: Robot Operating Technique, or ROS, a set of application libraries for constructing robotic programs. So, he produced an Omniverse Extension to empower just that.

The extension allows end users manipulate simulated robotic units in the Omniverse-powered Isaac Sim application by way of ROS management interfaces. ROS MoveIt, a motion organizing framework for robots, can be employed in conjunction with Isaac Sim’s dynamic handle extension and PhysX capabilities, which provide actual physical precision to high-fidelity robotics simulations.

“It’s effortless to develop code without the need of leaving the Omniverse Kit,” Serrano-Muñoz claimed. “Omniverse Extensions come with a method-large integration API, set up, activation and reload mechanisms to increase the operation of Omniverse Apps.”

This distinct extension for ROS, he additional, boosts agile prototyping for robotics purposes — which is further more accelerated by his NVIDIA RTX 3080 Laptop computer GPU — making his workflow faster than ever.

Listen to extra from Serrano-Muñoz about applying digital twins for industrial robotics by observing his NVIDIA GTC session on need. And watch his Local community Spotlight on the Omniverse Twitch channel going on Aug. three at 11 a.m. PT.

Be a part of in on the Generation

Creators and developers throughout the earth can down load NVIDIA Omniverse for free, and enterprise teams can use the system for their 3D jobs.

Builders like Serrano-Muñoz will join NVIDIA at SIGGRAPH, a worldwide computer graphics meeting running Aug. eight-11. Observe the Omniverse local community livestream at SIGGRAPH on Tuesday, Aug. 9, at midday PT to understand how Omniverse and other style and visualization technologies are driving breakthroughs in graphics and GPU-accelerated software program.

Furthermore, any person can submit to the inaugural #ExtendOmniverse developer contest as a result of Friday, Aug. 19. Make an Omniverse Extension applying Omniverse Code for a likelihood to win an NVIDIA RTX GPU.

Verify out artwork from other “Omnivores” and submit initiatives in the gallery. Link your workflows to Omniverse with software package from Adobe, Autodesk, Epic Video games, Maxon, Reallusion and much more.

Comply with NVIDIA Omniverse on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Medium for additional sources and inspiration. Examine out the Omniverse discussion boards, and join our Discord server and Twitch channel to chat with the local community.

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