Asset Caching

Assets used in Isaac Lab are hosted on AWS S3 buckets on the cloud. Asset loading time can depend on your network connection and geographical location. In some cases, it is possible that asset loading times can be long when assets are pulled from the AWS servers.

If you run into cases where assets take a few minutes to load for each run, we recommend enabling asset caching following the below steps.

First, launch the Isaac Sim application:

Linux

./isaaclab.sh -s

Windows

isaaclab.bat -s

On the top right of the Isaac Lab or Isaac Sim app, look for the icon labeled CACHE:. You may see a message such as HUB NOT DETECTED or NEW VERSION DETECTED.

Click the message to enable Hub. Hub automatically manages local caching for Isaac Lab assets, so subsequent runs will use cached files instead of downloading from AWS each time.

Hub provides better control and management of cached assets, making workflows faster and more reliable, especially in environments with limited or intermittent internet access.

Note

The first time you run Isaac Lab, assets will still need to be pulled from the cloud, which could lead to longer loading times. Once cached, loading times will be significantly reduced on subsequent runs.

Nucleus

Before Isaac Sim 4.5, assets were accessed via the Omniverse Nucleus server, including setups with local Nucleus instances.

Warning

Starting with Isaac Sim 4.5, the Omniverse Nucleus server and Omniverse Launcher are deprecated. Existing Nucleus setups will continue to work, so if you have a local Nucleus server already configured, you may continue to use it.