Omniverse

Description

Omniverse website  

NVIDIA Omniverse is a platform for creating and operating metaverse applications. Omniverse is a real-time 3D graphics collaboration platform created by Nvidia. It has been used for applications in the visual effects and "digital twin" industrial simulation industries. Omniverse makes extensive use of the Universal Scene Description (USD) format. The support for running Omniverse on HiPerGator is limited to certain applications.

Learn more about Omniverse:

1. NVIDIA OnDemand Videos[1]

2. NVIDIA Omniverse Youtube Channel [2]

Omniverse Launcher [3]

The NVIDIA Omniverse™ Launcher is your first step into the Omniverse. Giving you immediate access to all the apps, connectors and other downloads the Omniverse Launcher is your gateway to the Omniverse. With an intuitive Interface, Launcher allows a quick experience for opening and updating Omniverse Apps and Connectors.

Nvidia is deprecating the Omniverse Launcher and its apps (excluding Isaac Sim, which will be a standalone app) and plans to discontinue support by the end of 2024. Those seeking to develop in the Omniverse environment should look into deploying Kit apps, which can be configured to have the same functionality as the existing suite of launcher apps through the coordination of extensions.

Omniverse Applications

Omniverse applications are built using Omniverse Kit, a versatile SDK with an emphasis on modularity. Kit apps are given functionality through the use of extensions that developers can mix and match or build themselves. Nvidia supplies a number of core extensions that can be used to kickstart development, such as the omni.ui extension for easily building UI systems.

Nvidia built a number of example applications, listed below, using the suite of extensions for Kit they developed. With the exception of Isaac Sim, Nvidia will no longer support these apps by the end of 2024, instead encouraging users to build their own apps using the Kit SDK.

• Omniverse USD Composer (Create) [4]:

NVIDIA Omniverse USD Composer (Formerly Omniverse Create) is an Omniverse app for world-building that allows users to assemble, light, simulate and render large scale scenes. It is built using NVIDIA Omniverse™ Kit. The Scene Description and in-memory model is based on Pixar’s USD. Omniverse USD Composer takes advantage of the advanced workflows of USD like Layers, Variants, Instancing and much more.

• Omniverse USD Presenter (View) [5]:

NVIDIA Omniverse USD Presenter is a simple, powerful reference application for interactive viewing and annotating of 3D design projects in stunning, physically-accurate photorealism.

• Omniverse Isaac Sim [6]:

NVIDIA Omniverse Isaac Sim is a robotics simulation toolkit for the NVIDIA Omniverse platform. Isaac Sim has essential features for building virtual robotic worlds and experiments. It provides researchers and practitioners with the tools and workflows they need to create robust, physically accurate simulations and synthetic datasets. Isaac Sim supports navigation and manipulation applications through ROS/ROS2. It simulates sensor data from sensors such as RGB-D, Lidar, and IMU for various computer vision techniques such as domain randomization, ground-truth labeling, segmentation, and bounding boxes.

Steps to install the NVIDIA Omniverse Launcher and Omniverse Applications

1. Navigate to the HiPerGator OpenOnDemand[ood.rc.ufl.edu] webpage. Request a HiPerGator Desktop on a hwgui node with a RTX6000 GPU [7].

2. Once you enter the HiPerGator Desktop, download the free standard omniverse launcher from https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/omniverse/download/. You may need to register to download the Omniverse launcher.

3. Open a terminal and make the downloaded file executable:
 chmod +x omniverse-launcher-linux.AppImage
or alternatively open the file properties and check "Allow this file to run as a program" in the permissions tab.
NOTE: It is advised to run the launcher from the terminal as at the time of writing, launched apps will crash unless you run the line
 export MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=4.6
before running the Omniverse launcher AppImage file with:
 ./omniverse-launcher-linux.AppImage

4. The first time you log into the Omniverse Launcher, you will be asked to sign up and login. Just follow the instructions to create an NVIDIA developer account and login.

5. When you first load up the Omniverse launcher, it will ask you to select the library path, data path, content path, and cache locations. Ensure that these point to directories you create in your Blue storage. If they are left at default, the 40 gigabytes on your login node will almost immediately fill up. If you need to change these file paths later, the library, data, and content paths can be changed by clicking on the user settings in the top right [8]. These paths, including the cache location, can be changed through the omniverse.toml file located in /home/your-username/.nvidia-omniverse/config/

6. In the Exchange tab, search and select any applications (e.g. Issac Sim) you wish to install. It may take some time to download and install them. Once the application is installed, you may find it in the "Library" tab

7. In order to start an application, select it in the Library tab and click the launch button [9].

8. You can explore more about installing Isaac Sim at this page [10].

Creating Omniverse Kit Apps

In order to create efficient applications, it can be desirable to build your own by using the Omniverse Kit SDK. You can choose which core extensions to utilize, leaving out unnecessary functionality, and can build your own extensions to suit your particular needs. These apps can then be packaged for easy deployment. More information on building Kit apps for use in HiPerGator coming soon.

Omniverse Connectors

• Omniverse Connect: Omniverse Connect allows you to use your favorite apps as first class content delivery tools for the Omniverse Platform. With tools like Revit, Rhino, Maya, Unreal Engine, and more these already powerful tools become super charged with all the potential of Omniverse. Realtime Collaboration, Path Traced Side by Side Rendering, Nucleus Snapshots, and USD Translation are just a few of the immediate benefits of working with Omniverse Connectors.

Here is a list of Applications with Omniverse Connectors support [11]. Remember that UFRC is not responsible for purchasing commercial license for the applications that is connected to Omniverse.

Currently on HiPerGator the support for applications with Omniverse Connectors is limited as most connectors are only compatible with Windows. If you have a Windows environment, it may be possible to interface with Omniverse through a Nucleus server.