ZED Isaac Sim Extension Overview

The ZED Camera extension for NVIDIA® Isaac Sim enables developers to connect the ZED SDK to their virtual ZED Cameras in Isaac Sim, allowing them to seamlessly simulate ZED-based robotics applications.

Some examples of applications:

  • Smart navigation, where mobile robots autonomously navigate in a virtual environment using the ZED SDK, the ZED ROS 2 wrapper, and any virtual robot rigged with the ZED X Camera
  • Repeatable testing environment that makes it easier to debug and optimize applications.

ZED Camera extension #

The extension will be available through the community (or third-party) tab in the NVIDIA® Isaac sim extension manager. It includes the Omnigraph node needed to stream data and the USD model of the ZED X camera.

The extension can also be found on the official Stereolabs GitHub repository.

Get started #

To connect your virtual ZED camera to the ZED SDK you have to complete the following steps:

Step 1: Install NVIDIA® Isaac Sim #

The recommended way to install Isaac Sim is to use the Omniverse launcher. You can find the installation instructions here.

Step 2: Install the ZED SDK #

The ZED SDK must be installed on the machine running Isaac Sim. You can find the installation instructions here.

Step 3: Add the virtual camera to your simulation #

If you haven’t already, we recommend to familiarize yourself with Isaac Sim by reading the Isaac Sim Main Concepts section of the official NVIDIA® documentation.

Then, get started with the ZED camera in Isaac Sim!

ROS 2 integration #

Isaac Sim can be used to simulate robots and generates ZED data to be used with ROS 2 and the ZED ROS 2 Wrapper.

Follow this guide to learn how to configure the Isaac Sim ROS 2 Bridge to send simulated information to a ZED ROS 2 Wrapper node.