Tutorial 1: Setup#

This tutorial runs in NVIDIA Isaac Sim with the Inspire Hand USD asset. Complete the following setup before starting the tutorials in this series.

Learning Objectives#

In this tutorial, you will:

  • Understand the hardware and software requirements for the OpenUSD and Tuning Best Practices series.

  • Obtain and extract the course USD files.

  • Open the starting Inspire Hand scene in Isaac Sim.

Prerequisites#

  • Basic familiarity with USD and Isaac Sim (stage, prims, layers).

  • Understanding of rigid-body physics (mass, inertia, joints) is helpful but not required.

Get the Course USD Files#

  1. The course files are located at IsaacSim/Samples/Rigging/Inspire/.

Within that folder, the course files are organized into multiple checkpoint folders:

  • module_1_start — Initial Inspire Hand USD inspire_hand.usda.

  • module_3_end-checkpoint_1 — Checkpoint with collision filters configured.

  • module_4_end-checkpoint_2 — Checkpoint with mimic joints, joint drive maximums, and tuned gains for the finger joints configured.

  • module_5_end-checkpoint_3 — Checkpoint with all finger and thumb joint gains tuned and authored.

Open the Starting Scene#

  1. In IsaacSim/Samples/Rigging/Inspire/module_1_start/, open inspire_hand.usda in Isaac Sim.

  2. Select the inspire_hand prim.

Summary#

This tutorial covered:

  • Where to obtain and how to organize the course USD checkpoint files.

  • How to open the starting Inspire Hand scene in Isaac Sim.

Next Steps#

Continue to Tutorial 2: Asset Structure (Tutorial 2: Asset Structure) to learn the USD Asset Structure 3.0 layout for the Inspire Hand.