Preparing for the Metaverse with NVIDIA Omniverse and Dell Technologies
Mon, 21 Mar 2022 11:47:03 -0000
|Read Time: 0 minutes
As technology evolves, it can sometimes seem like creativity leads to complexity. In the case of 3D graphics creation, teams with a broad range of skills must come together. Each of the team members — from artists, designers, and animators to engineers and project managers — typically have a special skill set requiring their own tools, systems, and work environment.
But the technical issues do not stop there. As existing technologies mature and new ones enter the scene, the number of specialized 3D design and content creation tools rapidly increases. Many of them lack compatibility or interoperability with other tools. And across the 3D graphics ecosystem, hybrid workforces require a “physical workstation” experience wherever they may be.
It is no small task to provide compute-power access to a geographically distributed team in a way that enables collaboration without compromising security. But to remain competitive and retain top talent, companies must provide the necessary tools to the remote workforce.
Solutions for remote, collaborative, and secure 3D graphics creation
The new Dell Validated Design for VDI with NVIDIA Omniverse makes it possible for 3D graphics creation teams to work together from anywhere in real-time using multiple applications within shared virtual 3D worlds. NVIDIA® Omniverse users can access the resources and compute power they need through a virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI), without the need for a local physical workstation.
By running NVIDIA Omniverse on Dell PowerEdge NVIDIA‑Certified Systems™, companies can enable 3D graphics teams to connect with major design tools, assets, and projects to collaborate and iterate seamlessly from early-stage ideation through to finished creation.
Designs for NVIDIA Omniverse rely on Dell PowerEdge NVIDIA‑Certified Systems and leverage a VxRail‑based virtual workstation environment with NVIDIA A40 GPUs. VMware® Horizon® can provide workload virtualization. The designs were validated with Autodesk® Maya® 3D animation and visual effects software.
The flexible solution supports the varying needs of different industries. Within media and entertainment, for example, the goal might be to create virtual worlds for films or games. Those in architecture, engineering, and construction might want to see their innovative building designs come to life within a 3D reality. Manufacturers might look to collaborate on interactive and physically accurate visualizations of potential future products or create realistic simulations of factory floors.
For all organizations, the benefits are significant:
- Empower the workforce–Enhance 3D interactive user collaboration and productivity for remote and distributed teams.
- Boost efficiency–Streamline deployment, management and support with engineering‑validated designs created in close collaboration with NVIDIA.
- Collaborate securely–Protect data against cyberthreats from the data center to the endpoint with built‑in security features.
Transforming 3D graphics production
At Dell Technologies, we are excited about NVIDIA Omniverse and its ability to enable collaboration for designers, engineers, and other innovators leveraging Dell PowerEdge servers. Dell Validated Design for VDI with NVIDIA Omniverse solutions have the potential to transform every stage of 3D production, a crucial step forward toward the metaverse. According to the Marvel® database, “The Omniverse is every version of reality and existence imaginable and unimaginable” and brings together our physical and digital lives with augmented reality, extended reality and virtual reality in our physical world like the Oasis in Ready Player One.
An open platform built for virtual collaboration and real‑time simulation, NVIDIA Omniverse streamlines and accelerates even the most complex 3D workflows by enabling remote workers to collaborate using multiple apps simultaneously. Dell Technologies is committed to offering innovative solutions to help customers manage their collaborative and performance-intensive workflows.
Learn more about Dell Validated Design for VDI with NVIDIA Omniverse.
Related Blog Posts
Preparing for the Metaverse with NVIDIA Omniverse and Dell Technologies
Thu, 14 Apr 2022 20:01:45 -0000
|Read Time: 0 minutes
Initially published on March 21, 2022 at: https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/p/preparing-for-the-metaverse-with-nvidia-omniverse-and-dell-technologies/
As technology evolves, it can sometimes seem like creativity leads to complexity. In the case of 3D graphics creation, teams with a broad range of skills must come together. Each of the team members — from artists, designers, and animators to engineers and project managers — typically have a special skill set requiring their own tools, systems, and work environment.
But the technical issues do not stop there. As existing technologies mature and new ones enter the scene, the number of specialized 3D design and content creation tools rapidly increases. Many of them lack compatibility or interoperability with other tools. And across the 3D graphics ecosystem, hybrid workforces require a “physical workstation” experience wherever they may be.
It is no small task to provide compute-power access to a geographically distributed team in a way that enables collaboration without compromising security. But to remain competitive and retain top talent, companies must provide the necessary tools to the remote workforce.
Solutions for remote, collaborative, and secure 3D graphics creation
The new Dell Validated Design for VDI with NVIDIA Omniverse makes it possible for 3D graphics creation teams to work together from anywhere in real-time using multiple applications within shared virtual 3D worlds. NVIDIA® Omniverse users can access the resources and compute power they need through a virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI), without the need for a local physical workstation.
By running NVIDIA Omniverse on Dell PowerEdge NVIDIA‑Certified Systems™, companies can enable 3D graphics teams to connect with major design tools, assets, and projects to collaborate and iterate seamlessly from early-stage ideation through to finished creation.
Designs for NVIDIA Omniverse rely on Dell PowerEdge NVIDIA‑Certified Systems and leverage a VxRail‑based virtual workstation environment with NVIDIA A40 GPUs. VMware® Horizon® can provide workload virtualization. The designs were validated with Autodesk® Maya® 3D animation and visual effects software.
The flexible solution supports the varying needs of different industries. Within media and entertainment, for example, the goal might be to create virtual worlds for films or games. Those in architecture, engineering, and construction might want to see their innovative building designs come to life within a 3D reality. Manufacturers might look to collaborate on interactive and physically accurate visualizations of potential future products or create realistic simulations of factory floors.
For all organizations, the benefits are significant:
- Empower the workforce–Enhance 3D interactive user collaboration and productivity for remote and distributed teams.
- Boost efficiency–Streamline deployment, management and support with engineering‑validated designs created in close collaboration with NVIDIA.
- Collaborate securely–Protect data against cyberthreats from the data center to the endpoint with built‑in security features.
Transforming 3D graphics production
At Dell Technologies, we are excited about NVIDIA Omniverse and its ability to enable collaboration for designers, engineers, and other innovators leveraging Dell PowerEdge servers. Dell Validated Design for VDI with NVIDIA Omniverse solutions have the potential to transform every stage of 3D production, a crucial step forward toward the metaverse. According to the Marvel® database, “The Omniverse is every version of reality and existence imaginable and unimaginable” and brings together our physical and digital lives with augmented reality, extended reality and virtual reality in our physical world like the Oasis in Ready Player One.
An open platform built for virtual collaboration and real‑time simulation, NVIDIA Omniverse streamlines and accelerates even the most complex 3D workflows by enabling remote workers to collaborate using multiple apps simultaneously. Dell Technologies is committed to offering innovative solutions to help customers manage their collaborative and performance-intensive workflows.
Learn more about Dell Validated Design for VDI with NVIDIA Omniverse.
Developing Digital Twin 3D Models on Dell PowerEdge R760xa with NVIDIA Omniverse virtualized platform
Thu, 09 May 2024 19:36:48 -0000
|Read Time: 0 minutes
Related publications
This blog is part two of the blog series Dell Technologies PowerEdge R760xa with NVIDIA Omniverse:
- Part One: Deploy Virtualized NVIDIA Omniverse Environment with Dell PowerEdge R760xa and NVIDIA L40 GPUs
- Part Two: Developing Digital Twin 3D Models on Dell PowerEdge R760xa with NVIDIA Omniverse virtualized platform
- Part Three: Synthetic Data Generation with Dell PowerEdge R760xa and NVIDIA Omniverse Platform (Coming soon!)
The following related technical white paper is also available:
A Digital Twin Journey: Computer Vision AI Model Enhancement with Dell Technologies Integrated Solutions & NVIDIA Omniverse
Introduction
Digital Twins are physically accurate virtual replicas of assets, processes, or environments. Digital Twins are becoming increasingly popular with organizations looking to benefit from timely, and better decision making. Having a digitized virtual twin of real-world resources might, for example, enable businesses to identify and prevent costly mistakes or anomalies before they occur.
The Digital Twin paradigm can be applied to a lot of real-world scenarios, both big and small!
See Building Digital Twins of the Earth in Omniverse.
The Technical Challenge
Implementation of Digital Twin is a complex undertaking made all the more challenging by the fact there is no “one size fits all” approach.
See 5 Steps to Get Started with Digital Twins.
This article describes how Dell Technologies PowerEdge R760xa servers, in conjunction with the NVIDIA Omniverse platform, can be used in the development of physically accurate Digital Twin 3D workflows.
Omniverse
NVIDIA Omniverse is a platform of APIs, SDKs, and services that enable developers to easily integrate Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) and RTX rendering technologies into existing software tools and simulation workflows for building AI systems and 3D Digital Twin use cases.
The Omniverse ecosystem is designed from the ground up to enable development of new tools and workflows from scratch with customizable sample foundation application templates or SDKs that are easy to modify.
Laying the foundation for Digital Twin environments
For a sample configuration, refer to the Dell PowerEdge R760xa Technical Guide.
The PowerEdge R760xa server is positioned to meet the diverse needs of Digital Twin requirements such as 3D modelling, physics simulations, image rendering, computer vision, robotics, edge computing, AI training, and inferencing.
Taking the first steps into the Omniverse
Step One: Launcher is your gateway to the Omniverse
Launcher is an easy access GUI for enabling and learning about the Omniverse platform.
In Launcher, click the Exchange tab to download, install, and update Omniverse Apps and Connectors. Connectors extend the capabilities of Omniverse to integrate with a wide range of applications and services such as CAD, GIS, and VR.
Step Two:
USD Composer is a foundation app template built using NVIDIA Omniverse Kit. It takes advantage of the advanced 3D workflow capabilities of OpenUSD such as layers, variants, instancing, and animation caches. USD Composer lets you develop and compose physically accurate 3D scenes.
Note: See figure 7 depicting Assembly line scene generated with USD Composer.
Building 3D Scenes
For organizations looking to make more insightful and timely decisions by simulating their real-world resources—such as production lines, warehouse/factory designs, and computer vision AI anomaly detection capabilities—the generation of highly accurate 3D models that mirror real-world physics is crucial.
SimReady Assets
It’s not enough just to have 3D models that contain virtual assets that are visually accurate. For simulations to be insightful, 3D assets must also represent their real-world counterparts as closely as possible. NVIDIA is working to create a new 3D standard specification called SimReady assets. These assets are building blocks for virtual worlds.
Simulation platforms, such as Omniverse, can leverage SimReady assets (information and metadata) to make scenario modelling far more useful for research and training of a particular product or ecosystem.
See figures 6 and 7 below depicting the development of a basic automotive assembly line scene with both visual and SimReady assets.
The NVIDIA Omniverse RTX Renderer is a powerful rendering technology offering real-time and offline rendering capabilities.
RTX - Real-Time mode allows rendering more geometry than traditional rasterization methods while maintaining high fidelity. It is suitable for real-time applications.
In RTX - Interactive (Path Tracing) mode, the renderer uses a path tracing-based algorithm to achieve photorealistic results. This mode is ideal for scenarios where quality takes precedence over real-time performance with 4k or lower resolution. The balance of quality and performance depends on the given use case.
Performance and flexibility
The NVIDIA-SMI command-line utility (figure 9) shows an example of multi-GPU resource utilization (four physical L40 GPUs) on a Dell PowerEdge 760xa server and virtualized Omniverse instance.
Number of GPUs | Purpose |
2 | RTX rendering |
1 | 3D scene simulation |
1 | Training computer vision model |
Conclusion
There is no single implementation approach for Digital Twins due to their diverse and complex nature. Requirements might evolve as development takes place, so flexibility is a key consideration when embarking on a Digital Twin venture.
Omniverse Enterprise is architected with interoperability in mind. Based on OpenUSD, the platform fundamentally transforms complex 3D workflows. You can easily connect your 3D product pipelines and unlock full design-fidelity visualization of your 3D datasets using purpose-built connector plugins for the most common 3D applications and data types.
The compatibility and collaboration capabilities of NVIDIA Omniverse and the flexibility and computational power of Dell Technologies PowerEdge Servers combine to enable a strong foundation for the development/use of Digital Twin workflows.
References
Virtual Workstation Interactive Collaboration with NVIDIA Omniverse