Installation using Isaac Sim Binaries

Installation using Isaac Sim Binaries#

Note

If you use Conda, we recommend using Miniconda.

Installing Isaac Sim#

Downloading pre-built binaries#

Please follow the Isaac Sim documentation to install the latest Isaac Sim release.

To check the minimum system requirements,refer to the documentation here.

Note

We have tested Isaac Lab with Isaac Sim 4.1 release on Ubuntu 20.04LTS with NVIDIA driver 525.147.

On Linux systems, by default, Isaac Sim is installed in the directory ${HOME}/.local/share/ov/pkg/isaac_sim-*, with * corresponding to the Isaac Sim version.

On Windows systems, by default,Isaac Sim is installed in the directory %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\ov\pkg\isaac_sim-*, with * corresponding to the Isaac Sim version.

Verifying the Isaac Sim installation#

To avoid the overhead of finding and locating the Isaac Sim installation directory every time, we recommend exporting the following environment variables to your terminal for the remaining of the installation instructions:

# Isaac Sim root directory
export ISAACSIM_PATH="${HOME}/.local/share/ov/pkg/isaac-sim-4.2.0"
# Isaac Sim python executable
export ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE="${ISAACSIM_PATH}/python.sh"

:: Isaac Sim root directory
set ISAACSIM_PATH="%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\ov\pkg\isaac-sim-4.2.0"
:: Isaac Sim python executable
set ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE="%ISAACSIM_PATH:"=%\python.bat"

For more information on common paths, please check the Isaac Sim documentation.

  • Check that the simulator runs as expected:

    # note: you can pass the argument "--help" to see all arguments possible.
${ISAACSIM_PATH}/isaac-sim.sh

    :: note: you can pass the argument "--help" to see all arguments possible.
%ISAACSIM_PATH%\isaac-sim.bat

  • Check that the simulator runs from a standalone python script:

    # checks that python path is set correctly
${ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE} -c "print('Isaac Sim configuration is now complete.')"
# checks that Isaac Sim can be launched from python
${ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE} ${ISAACSIM_PATH}/standalone_examples/api/omni.isaac.core/add_cubes.py

    :: checks that python path is set correctly
%ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE% -c "print('Isaac Sim configuration is now complete.')"
:: checks that Isaac Sim can be launched from python
%ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE% %ISAACSIM_PATH%\standalone_examples\api\omni.isaac.core\add_cubes.py

Caution

If you have been using a previous version of Isaac Sim, you need to run the following command for the first time after installation to remove all the old user data and cached variables:

${ISAACSIM_PATH}/isaac-sim.sh --reset-user

%ISAACSIM_PATH%\isaac-sim.bat --reset-user

If the simulator does not run or crashes while following the above instructions, it means that something is incorrectly configured. To debug and troubleshoot, please check Isaac Sim documentation and the forums.

Installing Isaac Lab#

Cloning Isaac Lab#

Note

We recommend making a fork of the Isaac Lab repository to contribute to the project but this is not mandatory to use the framework. If you make a fork, please replace isaac-sim with your username in the following instructions.

Clone the Isaac Lab repository into your workspace:

git clone git@github.com:isaac-sim/IsaacLab.git

git clone https://github.com/isaac-sim/IsaacLab.git

Note

We provide a helper executable isaaclab.sh that provides utilities to manage extensions:

./isaaclab.sh --help

usage: isaaclab.sh [-h] [-i] [-f] [-p] [-s] [-t] [-o] [-v] [-d] [-c] -- Utility to manage Isaac Lab.

optional arguments:
   -h, --help           Display the help content.
   -i, --install [LIB]  Install the extensions inside Isaac Lab and learning frameworks (rl-games, rsl-rl, sb3, skrl) as extra dependencies. Default is 'all'.
   -f, --format         Run pre-commit to format the code and check lints.
   -p, --python         Run the python executable provided by Isaac Sim or virtual environment (if active).
   -s, --sim            Run the simulator executable (isaac-sim.sh) provided by Isaac Sim.
   -t, --test           Run all python unittest tests.
   -o, --docker         Run the docker container helper script (docker/container.sh).
   -v, --vscode         Generate the VSCode settings file from template.
   -d, --docs           Build the documentation from source using sphinx.
   -c, --conda [NAME]   Create the conda environment for Isaac Lab. Default name is 'isaaclab'.

isaaclab.bat --help

usage: isaaclab.bat [-h] [-i] [-f] [-p] [-s] [-v] [-d] [-c] -- Utility to manage Isaac Lab.

optional arguments:
   -h, --help           Display the help content.
   -i, --install [LIB]  Install the extensions inside Isaac Lab and learning frameworks (rl-games, rsl-rl, sb3, skrl) as extra dependencies. Default is 'all'.
   -f, --format         Run pre-commit to format the code and check lints.
   -p, --python         Run the python executable provided by Isaac Sim or virtual environment (if active).
   -s, --sim            Run the simulator executable (isaac-sim.bat) provided by Isaac Sim.
   -t, --test           Run all python unittest tests.
   -v, --vscode         Generate the VSCode settings file from template.
   -d, --docs           Build the documentation from source using sphinx.
   -c, --conda [NAME]   Create the conda environment for Isaac Lab. Default name is 'isaaclab'.

Setting up the conda environment (optional)#

Attention

This step is optional. If you are using the bundled python with Isaac Sim, you can skip this step.

The executable isaaclab.sh automatically fetches the python bundled with Isaac Sim, using ./isaaclab.sh -p command (unless inside a virtual environment). This executable behaves like a python executable, and can be used to run any python script or module with the simulator. For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Although using a virtual environment is optional, we recommend using conda. To install conda, please follow the instructions here. In case you want to use conda to create a virtual environment, you can use the following command:

# Option 1: Default name for conda environment is 'isaaclab'
./isaaclab.sh --conda  # or "./isaaclab.sh -c"
# Option 2: Custom name for conda environment
./isaaclab.sh --conda my_env  # or "./isaaclab.sh -c my_env"

:: Option 1: Default name for conda environment is 'isaaclab'
isaaclab.bat --conda  :: or "isaaclab.bat -c"
:: Option 2: Custom name for conda environment
isaaclab.bat --conda my_env  :: or "isaaclab.bat -c my_env"

If you are using conda to create a virtual environment, make sure to activate the environment before running any scripts. For example:

conda activate isaaclab  # or "conda activate my_env"

Once you are in the virtual environment, you do not need to use ./isaaclab.sh -p / isaaclab.bat -p to run python scripts. You can use the default python executable in your environment by running python or python3. However, for the rest of the documentation, we will assume that you are using ./isaaclab.sh -p / isaaclab.bat -p to run python scripts. This command is equivalent to running python or python3 in your virtual environment.

Installation#

  • Install dependencies using apt (on Linux only):

    # these dependency are needed by robomimic which is not available on Windows
sudo apt install cmake build-essential

  • Run the install command that iterates over all the extensions in source/extensions directory and installs them using pip (with --editable flag):

./isaaclab.sh --install # or "./isaaclab.sh -i"

isaaclab.bat --install :: or "isaaclab.bat -i"

Note

By default, the above will install all the learning frameworks. If you want to install only a specific framework, you can pass the name of the framework as an argument. For example, to install only the rl_games framework, you can run

./isaaclab.sh --install rl_games  # or "./isaaclab.sh -i rl_games"

isaaclab.bat --install rl_games :: or "isaaclab.bat -i rl_games"

The valid options are rl_games, rsl_rl, sb3, skrl, robomimic, none.

Verifying the Isaac Lab installation#

To verify that the installation was successful, run the following command from the top of the repository:

# Option 1: Using the isaaclab.sh executable
# note: this works for both the bundled python and the virtual environment
./isaaclab.sh -p source/standalone/tutorials/00_sim/create_empty.py

# Option 2: Using python in your virtual environment
python source/standalone/tutorials/00_sim/create_empty.py

:: Option 1: Using the isaaclab.bat executable
:: note: this works for both the bundled python and the virtual environment
isaaclab.bat -p source\standalone\tutorials\00_sim\create_empty.py

:: Option 2: Using python in your virtual environment
python source\standalone\tutorials\00_sim\create_empty.py

The above command should launch the simulator and display a window with a black viewport. You can exit the script by pressing Ctrl+C on your terminal. On Windows machines, please terminate the process from Command Prompt using Ctrl+Break or Ctrl+fn+B.

Simulator with a black window.

If you see this, then the installation was successful! 🎉