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Omniverse Realtime Viewer

NVIDIAOfficialCreated by NVIDIA Omniverse

  • Skill
  • Tool integration
  • Software development
  • Apache-2.0
  • Medium risk

From the author

Use as the top-level router for Omniverse Realtime Viewer USD apps, XR delivery, SPG GPU processing, stylized rendering, and focused viewer reference documents.
— the description by NVIDIA Omniverse

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

The Omniverse Realtime Viewer skill acts as a central routing and architectural framework for developing USD-based 3D viewer applications. It provides a structured approach to composing rendering, scene state, and delivery mechanisms, ensuring that developers can integrate OVRTX rendering, OVStage scene management, and various UI or streaming adapters effectively. The skill emphasizes a modular architecture where the viewer runtime, UI/input adapters, and delivery systems are decoupled, allowing for consistent behavior across local and streamed environments.

What it does

  • Provides a routing architecture for USD viewer apps, XR delivery, and GPU-accelerated rendering.
  • Defines the separation of concerns between viewer runtime, UI adapters, and delivery systems.
  • Offers guidance on integrating OVRTX for high-fidelity 3D rendering.
  • Establishes conventions for camera interaction, scene state management, and input handling.
  • Supports the implementation of specialized features like stylized rendering and CAE/CFD visualization.
  • Provides protocols for agent-to-UI communication and scene control.

When to use it

  • When starting the development of a new USD-based realtime viewer application.
  • When integrating advanced rendering features like stylized visualization or AOV switching.
  • When building XR or spatial editing capabilities into an existing Omniverse application.
  • When you need to standardize the architecture for local and streamed viewer deployments.
  • When implementing chat-driven scene control or agent-based inspection of a 3D scene.

Advantages

  • Promotes a clean, modular architecture that separates rendering logic from UI and transport.
  • Ensures consistent behavior across different delivery methods, such as local windows or WebRTC streaming.
  • Provides clear paths for extending functionality without disrupting the core viewer runtime.
  • Facilitates the integration of complex simulation and visualization data into the viewer.
  • Standardizes conventions for scene state, selection, and camera control.

Usage examples

“How do I set up a basic USD viewer application using the Omniverse Realtime Viewer architecture?”
The agent will guide you to start with the viewer app reference, resolve dependencies, and implement the core runtime owner to manage the OVStage and OVRTX renderer.
“I need to add stylized rendering to my existing viewer. Where should I start?”
The agent will direct you to the stylized visualization references to implement the required USD/Lua/CUDA nodes within your existing runtime owner.
“How can I enable an AI agent to control the viewer scene?”
The agent will point to the A2UI Scene Copilot reference to implement an operation interface that allows the agent to send commands through the existing runtime owner.
“How do I switch between different render outputs like beauty and depth in my viewer?”
The agent will explain how to use the AOV switching reference to map RenderVars and update the RenderProduct's orderedVars through the runtime owner.

Install

  1. Download the skill as a ZIP:

    https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-skills/nvidia/omniverse-realtime-viewer/download
  2. Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

    mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip omniverse-realtime-viewer.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by NVIDIA Omniverse

<!-- SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2026 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved. -->

<!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 -->

Omniverse Realtime Viewer

Build responsive USD viewers by composing OVRTX rendering, OVStage scene state, and the delivery/UI libraries appropriate to the app. Use this package for viewer architecture and interaction; use each selected SDK's upstream guidance for installation and exact release-specific APIs.

Start With The App

  1. When delivery is explicit, select its recipe through references/routing.md and follow its current phase. Otherwise start with references/usd-viewer-app/README.md. For an existing app, keep its architecture and read only the references for the requested change. Broad app, conventions and UI catalogs are lookups as needed.

  2. Resolve the selected libraries through references/dependencies/README.md. Preserve the project's manifest unless an upgrade is requested.

  3. Build a working frame and camera interaction in the chosen shell, then add the requested capabilities. Read references/conventions.md for shared input, camera, selection, and protocol conventions.

  4. Use references/viewer-ux-workflow/README.md for broader interface design. Loading, selection feedback, errors, and input responsiveness belong in the first working app, alongside rendering.

  5. Validate the actual delivery path with references/validation.md. A browser screenshot does not validate a native window or a different transport.

Architecture

OwnerResponsibility
Viewer runtimeOwn the live OVStage, publication clock, OVRTX renderer, scene changes, and render stepping.
UI and input adapterDisplay frames and copied app state; send user intent to the runtime owner.
Storage/query/simulation workersPerform their assigned work and return results through the selected integration boundary.
Delivery adapterPresent locally or stream through ovstream; respect frame ownership and backpressure.

Use OVRTX for USD/3D rendering. Browser apps display its WebRTC video; local apps present its output through their native shell. A missing GPU means rendering is unverified, not a reason to substitute a browser 3D renderer.

Keep viewer cameras, settings, effects, and transient edits in app-owned session or runtime state so the source USD stays intact. Serialize scene mutation and render stepping through the runtime owner. Read references/ovstage-ovrtx-integration/README.md for that loop, then the population or data-plane references when implementing scene loading or attribute writes.

Keep expensive loading and metadata work off the UI and render threads. Keep transport details behind a delivery adapter so camera, selection, properties, and loading state can be reused across local and streamed shells.

Add Capabilities As Needed

Use references/routing.md to select camera/picking, scene management, render settings, cloud assets, simulation, editor tools, deployment, or CAE/CFD visualization. Read the selected capability's implementation flow and its linked contract; the full reference catalog is not a prerequisite for a first frame.

For simulation, use the routing reference's Simulation Ecosystem section plus references/realtime-sim-integration/README.md. For UI-driven forces or control, add references/interaction-round-trip/README.md.

For example scenes, use references/usd-sample-data/README.md. When a runtime failure needs diagnosis, use references/troubleshooting/README.md and the selected SDK's matching release guidance before changing the architecture.

Solid Modeling: Upstream First

For usd-brep, exact BRep, solid modeling, kernel failures, CAD topology, or BrepArray questions, first read references/dependencies/README.md → USD BRep. Follow the owning repository's current agent guidance, skills, operation docs, and package API before selecting local integration references. Discover the upstream router rather than assuming skill names or directory layouts remain fixed. Upstream owns modeling semantics, schema rules, tuning, and diagnostics; this package owns OVRTX display, worker handoff, selection mapping, and publication timing.

GPU Processing And Stylized Viewers

For custom GPU processing, chained outputs and lens sampling, read references/spg-processing/README.md. For toon, ink, technical/X-Ray styles, geometry strokes or full wireframe, continue to references/stylized-visualization/implementation.md. Its USD/Lua/CUDA starting node and geometry/depth/composite build sequence work with the selected viewer recipe; use references/stylized-visualization/style-recipes.md for the preset math and references/stylized-visualization/README.md for supporting contracts. Implement the result inside the existing OVRTX/runtime owner and deliver the published processed output. These instructions do not require a sample checkout or a prior stylized-rendering implementation.

For an optional usd-brep geometry source, first read references/dependencies/README.md → USD BRep and the owning repository's current agent guidance, skills, and operation docs; then read references/stylized-visualization/usd-brep-source.md for the display boundary.

XR Viewers

For headsets, immersive viewers, or spatial editors, start with references/xr-viewer-recipe/README.md. Resolve SDK setup and contracts through references/dependencies/ovxr.md; the library owns OpenXR lifecycle and frame submission. For controllers, hands, navigation, or scene tools, add references/xr-spatial-input/README.md and references/ovxr-python-interactions/README.md. For projection-integrated UI, read references/ovxr-composition-ui/README.md and references/ovxr-composition-ui-validation/README.md.

Files

references/xr-spatial-input/stage-composition.md

Source-safe stage composition

Ownership

The source USD is immutable application input. Cameras, render products, controllers, rays, teleport markers, hand joints, and navigation overrides are viewer-owned session data. Never write generated wrappers beside the source or author changes back to its root layer.

Create content-addressed USDA wrappers in an OS temporary session-layer cache. Use an absolute sublayer identifier for the source; references inside the source still resolve relative to their authored layer. Write wrappers atomically and reuse identical content.

OVStage must open the final composite through population.open_usd. Adding a USD reference after population can lose RenderProduct relationships in Fabric. Do not author a kitless RenderSettings prim.

Generated prim layout

Keep viewer-owned roots distinct from source scene roots, for example:

  • /DesktopCamera and /Render/DesktopView for the desktop product;

  • /AppXR/Controllers for flattened controller/ray/teleport leaves;

  • /ViewerHands for joint and fixture leaves;

  • OVXR-owned eye products under OVXR's documented paths.

Generated renderable leaves begin hidden. A zero-scale display matrix is a possible visibility convention for application geometry, never a valid user anchor. Flattening generated renderable leaves with identity parents lets an application write complete world matrices without ambiguous inherited transforms. Publish geometry through the README-documented update_prim_transforms operation with a coordinated ordinal, or the installed OVStage scene-write API; OVXR's update_camera_transforms documents cameras and is not a general object API. Do not prescribe it for controller bodies, hands or selected objects.

Navigation and arbitrary stages

Use the current OVXR managed anchor for user movement/yaw/scale; see navigation. Source roots, their baseline transforms, and sibling geometry stay unchanged, so arbitrary multi-root scenes move consistently from the user's perspective without root discovery or scene-write permission.

The former inverse scene-root navigation strategy is a legacy fallback only when the anchor API is absent. Do not combine it with managed-anchor movement. Application object editing is separate: validate target ownership and preserve source baselines in session state without saving the input USD.

Stage reload is a lifecycle boundary: detach the OVXR context, populate the new composite, rediscover roots/metadata, reset input generations and generated-leaf publication state, rebuild scene-query geometry once, then reattach. Preserve the long-lived renderer when the library contract permits it.

Validation

Hash the source file before and after composition and interaction tests. Verify:

  • no new files appear in the source directory;

  • the generated wrapper sublayers the absolute source path;

  • source default prim, metres-per-unit, up-axis, and base root matrix are preserved;

  • controller/hand leaves contain valid geometry and start hidden;

  • user navigation changes the managed anchor without modifying source roots;

  • a reload clears stale action/capture/BVH state.

For stage01, test a non-identity /World baseline and a non-origin viewer pivot so identity-only or origin-only implementations cannot pass accidentally.

Building hierarchy and world-pose lookup without sample code

Use stage hierarchy, the shared data plane and transform safety for current native queries and derived-world computation; their dependency routes own exact signatures. Read the intended committed state and validate row count, finite matrices and path correspondence. A hierarchy relation result does not itself author world transforms, and a missing computed attribute does not authorize a fabricated identity.

A portable source-only fallback uses an isolated USD worker:

# Run in the worker interpreter, never in an ABI-conflicting render process.
from pxr import Usd, UsdGeom
stage = Usd.Stage.Open(final_composite_path)
cache = UsdGeom.XformCache(Usd.TimeCode.Default())
prim = stage.GetPrimAtPath(requested_absolute_path)
if not prim or not prim.IsActive():
    raise ValueError("missing or inactive spawn prim")
world = cache.GetLocalToWorldTransform(prim)
matrix16 = [float(world[r][c]) for r in range(4) for c in range(4)]

Return this matrix with the exact composite identity, stage generation, path, metres-per-unit, up-axis and provenance. The parent validates all of them. Cache source hierarchy per generation; for app-owned edits retain authoritative committed transforms or invalidate affected cached ancestors/descendants. Animated or externally edited source poses require current native data or a new snapshot, not stale worker values. Default-anchor selection reads this complete world matrix and copies it into a managed anchor; it never writes it onto the source prim's local xform.

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Needs Python, Needs Node.js

The author says: Orchestrator skill. Downstream focused references may require NVIDIA GPUs, ovrtx, ovstream, ovui, OpenUSD, Python, Node/React, Tauri, Electron, C++, or cloud GPU deployment access depending on the selected viewer path.

Security

What our scanner noticed· Medium risk

  • Large base64-encoded blobs
  • Instructions that use the network

A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Created by
NVIDIA Omniverse
Publisher
NVIDIA (Official)
Source
NVIDIA/skills · skills/omniverse-realtime-viewer · commit fce3cca
Licence
Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)
  • LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE-APACHE)
  • ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
Synced

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