NVIDIA has announced that the latest version of the NVIDIA PhysX 5 SDK is now available under the same open source license terms as NVIDIA PhysX 4. Available at NVIDIA-Omniverse/PhysX Found this update in the repository.NVIDIA acquired Ageia, the company behind PhysX more than a decade ago, and in 2019 announced the open source PhysX 4.1 SDK.

According to the announcement, in view of PhysX Has become similar to the open source Pixar Generic Scenario Description (USD) Key reference implementations of physical standards – available at PixarAnimationStudios/USD get.So NVIDIA decided to revert to the more relaxed licensing terms that PhysX 4 used. All CPU source code is available under the simple BSD3 open source license, and NVIDIA GPU binaries are also freely available.

According to the introduction, as a long-term GameWorks technology, PhysX has become the main physics engine and NVIDIA Omniverse key underlying technology pillars. It is a powerful simulation engine that is currently widely used in robotics, deep reinforcement learning, autonomous driving, factory automation and visual effects. For next-generation robotics applications, it will enable high-fidelity simulations at the real-time speeds needed to simulate and test autonomous machines.

NVIDIA Flow and NVIDIA Blast Libraries, although not technically dependent on PhysX, are covered by this license as part of the PhysX product family. Flow is now bundled in the same GitHub repo as the PhysX SDK, and Blast will be added soon.

PhysX 5 SDK now supports NVIDIA Flex function, thus realizing various new functions. These capabilities include soft-body dynamics based on finite element models, as well as liquid, cloth, and inflatable objects using position-based dynamics, optimized to run on GPUs. A signed distance field collision feature on the GPU has also been added, allowing users to perform collision detection using a voxelized version of the source mesh without creating a convex decomposition.

In terms of new CPU capabilities, PhysX 5 users can now define custom geometries, which means cylindrical or implicit block-based worlds are now supported. Both CPU and GPU parallel computing performance has been significantly improved for large simulations.

The evolution of PhysX’s role has also brought some fundamental technological changes. PhysX formerly a game physics engine with optimized ports for a variety of video game consoles; now a high-fidelity GPU-accelerated physics simulation engine for robotics, deep reinforcement learning, autonomous driving, factory automation, and visual effects​​​ ,Wait. So NVIDIA says it no longer provides ports of video game consoles, but given the licensing adopted, the community can now create and maintain ports of such platforms.

As part of the update, tools and utilities such as the Digital Content Creation Tool Exporter, Debug Telemetry and Diagnostics, Demos and Examples are now incorporated into the Omniverse platform. And the advanced demo is no longer bundled with the SDK. Visit the Physics Demo in NVIDIA Omniverse on NVIDIA On-Demand for more advanced examples of possible implementations of PhysX. also,NVIDIA is also investing in creating a physics toolset in Omniverse.

Regarding future plans,NVIDIA said it will continue to embrace open source to support the building of an inclusive ecosystem.

“This is the first step in opening up more and more Omniverse source code. When you browse the source code, you may come across some files that existed as far back as 2001 and are still available today. In the near future, we will release source code showing how to build a user-modified PhysX SDK as a custom Omniverse extension. NVIDIA also plans to provide a complete reference implementation of the USD physics parser and simulation stack with full source code.“

More details can be found in the official announcement.