Digital Twins: Install NVIDIA Omniverse platform and Run Issac-Sim

[YunchaoYang]

Steps to install Omniverse and Isaac Sim on HiPerGator

Yunchao Yang, April 14, 2023

Start by requesting Hipergator Desktop instance on a hwgui node with RTX6000 GPU from the HiPerGator Open OnDemand web interface.

1. install Omniverse Launcher: download the Standard omniverse launcher from https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/omniverse/download/.

2. extract the AppImage files and run the omniverse launcher

    ./omniverse-launcher-linux.AppImage --appimage-extract # This will create a squashfs-root folder 
    mv squashfs-root omniverse-launcher-linux 
    cd omniverse-launcher-linux
    ./AppRun # This will open a Omniverse Launcher window

3. The first time you logon Omniverse Launcher, you will be asked to signup and login. Just follow the instructions to create an NVIDIA developer account and login.

4. Once you have login the Omniverse launcher, you can see the Omniverse launcher interface, click the top right user-setting and change the library path data path, and content path to your blue or orange storage. Please do this before installing any applications otherwise, the default installation path is in $HOME with limit of 40GB, which will be full immediately.

5. In the Exchange tab, select your applications (e.g. Issac Sim) to install them. It may takes some time for the downloading and installation. Once the application is installed, you may find it in the "LIBRARY" tab

6. Start the Application: From the LIBRARY tab, you can click the launch button to start your application.

Where to find help:

1. help.rc.ufl.edu
2. submit a bugzilla ticket: https://support.rc.ufl.edu/enter_bug.cgi

[leonleonardo]

When extracting the AppImage the following error message arose:

-bash: ./omniverse-launcher-linux.AppImage: Permission denied

To solve this issue, take the following steps:

1. Open a file manager in the working directory by running: xdg-open .

2. Right click on the AppImage, and select Properties

3. Click on the permissions tab, and check "Allow executing file as program"

Now the AppImage should extract successfully.