Meet Genesis: The Open-Source 4D Physics Engine

A team of leading researchers, including Zhou Xian, Yiling Qiao, Zhenjia Xu, and Tsun-Hsuan Wang, along with contributors from Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, MIT (CSAIL), NVIDIA, and Tsinghua University, have unveiled Genesis, a groundbreaking physics platform for robotics and embodied AI.

Introducing Genesis

Genesis is a generative physics engine capable of creating 4D dynamic worlds, designed for general-purpose robotics and AI applications. Developed over a 24-month collaboration involving 20+ research labs, Genesis pushes the boundaries of physics simulation speed and accuracy.

According to Zhou Xian, one of the project researchers, Genesis is “the world’s fastest physics engine,” achieving speeds up to 80 times faster than current GPU-accelerated simulators like Isaac Gym and Mujoco MJX, without sacrificing accuracy.

Key Features of Genesis

1. 4D Dynamic World Generation: Enables the creation of realistic environments for data extraction, training, and testing.
2. Motion and Policy Simulation: Supports tasks such as: Animating a miniature Wukong performing acrobatics. Robotic policies, including arms organizing books and drones executing synchronized flips.
3. Differentiable and High-Fidelity Simulation: Integrates solvers like MPM and Tool Solvers to simulate materials and physical interactions accurately.
4. User-Friendly Design: Built entirely in Python with a simple and intuitive API. Includes photo-realistic ray-tracing rendering for highly detailed visuals.
5. Generative Simulation with Natural Language: Allows users to generate tasks like scene creation, motion generation, and video simulation using natural language descriptions.

Unparalleled Speed and Efficiency

Genesis is optimized for extreme performance with GPU-accelerated parallel computation. In a robotic manipulation example using a Franka arm, Genesis achieved 43 million FPS, making it 430,000 times faster than real-time simulation.

The platform also uses auto-hibernation to improve efficiency by managing static entities dynamically. A new feature update (v0.1.1) is planned to enhance this capability further.

Open-Source and Community-Driven

Genesis is open-source and aims to make advanced physics simulation accessible to researchers and developers. The team emphasizes their mission: “to lower the barrier to using physics simulations and make robotics research accessible to everyone.”

The platform can be installed via PyPI with simple commands, and full documentation and API references are available. The Genesis team encourages contributions from the community to expand and refine its capabilities.

The Takeaway

Genesis represents a major leap forward for robotics and embodied AI. With its unmatched speed, user-friendly design, and generative simulation capabilities, Genesis provides the tools needed to accelerate research and innovation in robotics.