Enhancements and upgrades for the release: v0.3 🚀

[Mayankm96]

👀 Overview

This release includes various fixes and improvements to the framework. It additionally includes many new features, as listed below.

Full Changelog: v0.2.0...v0.3.0

✨ New Features

• Adds terrain-aware patch sampling into the terrain generator by @nikitardn
• Adds a viewer camera controller to the base environment by @farbod-farshidian
• Adds animation recording for environments by @Mayankm96
• Adds Franka cabinet opening environment from IsaacGymEnvs by @renezurbruegg
• Adds Allegro hand cube manipulation environment from IsaacGymEnvs by @Mayankm96, @arbhardwaj98
• Adds Allegro and Shadow Hand asset configurations by @Mayankm96
• Adds Kinova (Jaco2, Gen3) asset configurations by @Mayankm96
• Adds approximate torque calculation for implicit actuator by @nikitardn
• Adds loading of custom kit experience files using AppLauncher by @Mayankm96

🔧 Improvements

• Adds a runner script to execute all tests in the source directory by @jsmith-bdai
• Allows loading of initialized configs in load_cfg_from_registry by @nikitardn
• Checks default joint states are configured within limits by @Dhoeller19
• Expands on unit tests for rigid object asset and terrain importer classes by @jsmith-bdai
• Adds unit tests for contact sensor class by @fyu-bdai
• Adds signal interrupt handle to AppLauncher by @Mayankm96
• Adds ROS2 Humble to Dockerfile by @hhansen-bdai
• Improved usage instructions for cluster deployment by @pascal-roth
• Removes unnecessary future imports for Python 3.10 by @Mayankm96

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixes running environments with a single instance by @Dhoeller19
• Fixes source frame indexing in FrameTransfomer sensor by @jsmith-bdai
• Fixes handling of time-out signal in RSL-RL and RL-Games wrapper by @Mayankm96
• Fixes unwanted squeeze in Articulation class for 1-joint assets by @Mayankm96
• Fixes shape argument ordering in hf_terrains.random_uniform_terrain by @nikitardn
• Fixes joint and body sub-indexing for observations and rewards by @Dhoeller19
• Fixes camera sensor for Isaac Sim 2023.1 update by @hhansen-bdai
• Fixes imitation learning workflow for lift environment by @jsmith-bdai
• Fixes apply actions method in the NonHolonomicAction action term class by @KyleM73
• Fixes the tensor shape for the contact sensor's force matrix data by @abmoRobotics
• Fixes missing max raycast distance in RayCaster sensor by @renezurbruegg
• Fixes rendering of RTX sensors within the environment stepping by @Dhoeller19

💔 Breaking Changes

• Drops support for Isaac Sim 2022.2.2 and earlier by @hhansen-bdai
• Removes compat submodule from orbit by @Mayankm96
• Removes omni.isaac.contrib_tasks in favor of separate project template by @nburger-bdai
• Changes link names ordering in articulation to follow PhysX by @Mayankm96
• Renames RandomizationManager to EventManager by @pascal-roth
• Renames some terms in omni.isaac.orbit.envs.mdp to avoid confusion by @Mayankm96

✈️ Migration Guide

Renaming of Randomization Manager to Event Manager

While the randomization manager referred to all possible " randomizations " in the environment, many users felt that the triggering
of the terms was not apparent. Additionally, for non-RL use-cases, randomization seemed like a misnomer. Hence, we renamed the class to be called event manager.

Replace the following import and usage:

from omni.isaac.orbit.managers import RandomizationTermCfg as RandTerm

@configclass
class RandomizationCfg:
    """Configuration for randomization."""

    reset_base = RandTerm(
        func=mdp.reset_root_state_uniform,
        mode="reset",
        params={"pose_range": {}, "velocity_range": {}},
    )

@configclass
class MyEnvCfg:

     randomization: RandomizationCfg = RandomizationCfg()

with the following:

from omni.isaac.orbit.managers import EventTermCfg as EventTerm

@configclass
class EventCfg:
    """Configuration for events."""

    reset_base = EventTerm(
        func=mdp.reset_root_state_uniform,
        mode="reset",
        params={"pose_range": {}, "velocity_range": {}},
    )

@configclass
class MyEnvCfg:

     events: EventCfg = EventCfg()

Renaming of MDP terms

We observed that several of the MDP terms had close to overlapping names, such as the reward term joint_pos_limits and termination term joint_pos_limit. To avoid errors, we decided to make the term names clearer.

Please note the following changes in MDP terms:

• Observation: joint_pos_norm -> joint_pos_limit_normalized
• Event: add_body_mass -> randomize_rigid_body_mass
• Termination: base_height -> root_height_below_minimum
• Termination: joint_pos_limit -> joint_pos_out_of_limit
• Termination: joint_pos_manual_limit -> joint_pos_out_of_manual_limit
• Termination: joint_vel_limit -> joint_vel_out_of_limit
• Termination: joint_vel_manual_limit -> joint_vel_out_of_manual_limit
• Termination: joint_torque_limit -> joint_effort_out_of_limit

Removal of omni.isaac.contrib_tasks

Initially, we intended to have the contrib_tasksmodule for developers to send their environment implementations. However, many users preferred a more isolated development environment for their projects. Hence, we removed the contrib_tasks and now provide a separate template repository for building projects that use Orbit.

However, we encourage the community to provide their environment implementations directly to the orbit_tasks extension. This allows us to ensure the environments are maintained during future releases of the framework.

For more details, please check: https://github.com/isaac-orbit/orbit.ext_template

🤗 New Contributors

• @fyu-bdai made their first contribution in 06ada15
• @arbhardwaj98 made their first contribution in 1a42eb9
• @phenomen21 made their first contribution in Fixes typo in the check_instanceable.py script #248
• @Ltesfaye made their first contribution in Fixes unused keep_invalid arg in create_pointcloud_from_depth method #320
• @KyleM73 made their first contribution in Fixes apply actions method in the NonHolonomicAction action term class #317
• @VladimirFokow made their first contribution in Fixes various typos in the documentation #321
• @shafeef901 made their first contribution in Fixes grid origins in TerrainImporter to match Isaac Sim cloner #300
• @RumblingTurtle made their first contribution in Fixes missing argument in calls to ContactSensor.find_bodies  #341

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This discussion was created from the release v0.3.0.