From the Onshape Labs, the Omniverse Publisher: A Single Source of Truth for CAD-to-Robotics Simulation

Robotics designs, from industrial cobots to humanoid robots, go through a stack of specialized tools. Within that stack, the handoff between CAD and simulation is the most precarious. Essential design data is added downstream of exports, rather than captured in the design system of record. Simulation setups need to be manually re-created when the design changes. Together, these issues make it easy for design and simulation data to fall out of sync

The Omniverse Publisher, an early-stage Onshape Labs tool available through the Onshape App Store, strengthens the handoff from Onshape to NVIDIA Omniverse, including NVIDIA Isaac Sim. The tool gives robotics teams an opportunity to explore a more connected workflow and shape its future through user feedback.

With the Publisher, your Onshape assembly, along with its geometry, joint physics, and drive attributes, is associatively published to NVIDIA Isaac Sim. Robotics behavior can be defined and managed directly within Onshape assemblies, allowing more of a robot’s definition to live alongside the design itself.

So, as designs evolve, updated SimReady OpenUSD data can be republished and brought into Isaac Sim while preserving downstream simulation work. The design, simulation, and controls development workflow stays tightly connected, helping teams iterate confidently as hardware evolves.

The CAD-to-Simulation Translation Tax

Moving a robotic assembly from CAD into robot simulation software has historically meant paying a translation tax. STEP and glTF exports strip out the metadata that makes a robot a robot. URDF files, a widely adopted robotics interchange format, are missing the object identity and layered editing capabilities required for associative downstream setups and updates, and can’t capture some joint configurations and simulation metadata.

Every mechanical change restarts that cycle, causing design and simulation models to diverge and slowing iteration.

What’s the Omniverse Publisher?

The Omniverse Publisher allows the robotics definition of a robot to live in Onshape alongside the mechanical design.

From the CAD environment, the assembly can be exported as SimReady OpenUSD data for use in NVIDIA Isaac Sim. OpenUSD is an open-source 3D framework built for extensibility, composability, and scale, making it well-suited for robotics workflows that combine assets from multiple sources.

Instead of arriving as an incomplete one-time data package, the Onshape design retains important robotics metadata and is immediately ready for simulation and associative updates. Physics-enabled joints, mass properties, colliders, and drive characteristics are included in the export, while stable identifiers preserve part identity across updates. So when you update the design in Onshape, your changes will propagate cleanly into Isaac Sim without breaking the simulation setup you’ve already built around your robot.

A New Robotics Workflow

While still an early-stage capability, the Omniverse Publisher points toward a more connected robotics workflow:

• Define mechanical and robotics data within an Onshape assembly.
• Publish SimReady OpenUSD data for use in NVIDIA Isaac Sim.
• Validate robot performance through simulation, controls development, and testing.
• Identify mechanical issues earlier through simulation feedback.
• Republish updated designs while preserving downstream simulation work.

As an example, consider a robotic gripper that performs well in CAD but fails when evaluated in a simulation environment. Instead of manually recreating the robot definition and reimporting geometry, teams can update the design in Onshape, republish the data, and continue validating changes in Isaac Sim. The result is less time spent maintaining models and more time improving robot behavior.

What a True Digital Twin Unlocks

A database-driven CAD model can become the foundation for machine learning policy development, controls development, synthetic dataset generation, and design validation.

For this part of the workflow, the three main benefits of the Omniverse Publisher include:

1. Zero-Friction Kinematics

When you publish an assembly from Onshape, supported mates can be exported as physics-enabled joints in Isaac Sim along with other robotics metadata, reducing manual setup and helping simulations stay aligned with the original design.

Simulation teams will no longer have to manually redefine the robot’s degrees of freedom. The digital twin behaves exactly as the mechanical engineer intended, right out of the box.

2. A Single Source of Truth

Because Onshape is cloud-native, version control is built in. When a mechanical engineer updates a design, they can republish updated SimReady OpenUSD data through the Publisher.

3. Tighter Feedback Loops

If a mechanical flaw is found during simulation – for example, insufficient range of motion or a design issue discovered during validation – the mechanical team updates the design in Onshape, republishes the data, and continues the iteration cycle without rebuilding the simulation model from scratch.

Test It Out

The Omniverse Publisher is available today through Onshape Labs on the Onshape App Store. While still an early-stage capability, it offers robotics teams a practical way to connect design, simulation, and controls development while helping shape the future of the workflow through direct feedback and real-world use.