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Isaac LabLocal Installation

Installation using Isaac Sim pip

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Isaac Lab requires Isaac Sim. This tutorial first installs Isaac Sim from pip, then Isaac Lab from source code.

Installing Isaac Sim

From Isaac Sim 4.0 release, it is possible to install Isaac Sim using pip. This approach makes it easier to install Isaac Sim without requiring to download the Isaac Sim binaries. If you encounter any issues, please report them to the Isaac Sim Forums.

Installing Isaac Sim with pip requires GLIBC 2.34+ version compatibility. To check the GLIBC version on your system, use command ldd --version.

This may pose compatibility issues with some Linux distributions. For instance, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS has GLIBC 2.31 by default. If you encounter compatibility issues, we recommend following the Isaac Sim Binaries Installation approach.

For details on driver requirements, please see the Technical Requirements guide!

On Windows, it may be necessary to enable long path support to avoid installation errors due to OS limitations.

If you plan to Set up Visual Studio Code later, we recommend following the Isaac Sim Binaries Installation approach.

If you use Conda, we recommend using Miniconda.

  • To use the pip installation approach for Isaac Sim, we recommend first creating a virtual environment. Ensure that the python version of the virtual environment is Python 3.11.
conda create -n env_isaaclab python=3.11
conda activate env_isaaclab
  • Before installing Isaac Sim, ensure the latest pip version is installed. To update pip, run
pip install --upgrade pip
  • Next, install a CUDA-enabled PyTorch 2.7.0 build.
pip install torch==2.7.0 torchvision==0.22.0 --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu128
  • Then, install the Isaac Sim packages.
pip install "isaacsim[all,extscache]==5.0.0" --extra-index-url https://pypi.nvidia.com

Verifying the Isaac Sim installation

  • Make sure that your virtual environment is activated (if applicable)

  • Check that the simulator runs as expected:

# note: you can pass the argument "--help" to see all arguments possible.
isaacsim
  • It’s also possible to run with a specific experience file, run:
# experience files can be absolute path, or relative path searched in isaacsim/apps or omni/apps
isaacsim isaacsim.exp.full.kit

When running Isaac Sim for the first time, all dependent extensions will be pulled from the registry. This process can take upwards of 10 minutes and is required on the first run of each experience file. Once the extensions are pulled, consecutive runs using the same experience file will use the cached extensions.

The first run will prompt users to accept the NVIDIA Software License Agreement. To accept the EULA, reply Yes when prompted with the below message:

By installing or using Isaac Sim, I agree to the terms of NVIDIA SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)
in https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/agreements/enterprise-software/nvidia-software-license-agreement
Do you accept the EULA? (Yes/No): Yes

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

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

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] [-n] [-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 pytest 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.
   -n, --new            Create a new external project or internal task from template.
   -c, --conda [NAME]   Create the conda environment for Isaac Lab. Default name is 'env_isaaclab'.

Installation

  • Install dependencies using apt (on Ubuntu):
sudo apt install cmake build-essential
  • Run the install command that iterates over all the extensions in source directory and installs them using pip (with --editable flag):
./isaaclab.sh --install # or "./isaaclab.sh -i"

By default, this 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"

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

The above command should launch the simulator and display a window with a black viewport as shown below. 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! |🎉|

Train a robot!

You can now use Isaac Lab to train a robot through Reinforcement Learning! The quickest way to use Isaac Lab is through the predefined workflows using one of our Batteries-included robot tasks. Execute the following command to quickly train an ant to walk! We recommend adding --headless for faster training.

./isaaclab.sh -p scripts/reinforcement_learning/rsl_rl/train.py --task=Isaac-Ant-v0 --headless

… Or a robot dog!

./isaaclab.sh -p scripts/reinforcement_learning/rsl_rl/train.py --task=Isaac-Velocity-Rough-Anymal-C-v0 --headless

Isaac Lab provides the tools you’ll need to create your own Tasks and Workflows for whatever your project needs may be. Take a look at our How-to Guides guides like Adding your own learning Library or Wrapping Environments for details.

Idle hands...