Omniverse, usd and what it means for AnyLogic modelling

You need a catch-up? At your service:

At the 2024 AnyLogic conference, AnyLogic demo'ed a new NVidia Omniverse connector. It let's you render and animate your AnyLogic model easily in the Omniverse. Below is the full video:

Here is a tldw;

• With a few clicks in your AnyLogic model, you can now visualize your 3D model animation much more beautifully.
• You can see the model execution in a rendered usd scene, even in VR
• You can collaborate with other teams on the usd scene easily
• (read more  about usd and Omniverse at the end of this article -> "Background")

I brought together all the various chats and discussions and grouped them by "pro" and "contra". The result is rather straight-forward:

Most users seem skeptical. We will address these further down. Let's kick off with the cheering crowd:

Let's start with the elephant in the room. Visuals count. Visuals influence. Visuals trigger change.

As much as we all pretend that it is your detailed model analysis, statistics and story-telling we prepared for the decision-maker: it is only ever part of the picture.

AnyLogic models are more and more used by large corporations for large-scale projects and big decisions. Very often, not only do you see several AnyLogic modelers work on 1 model. You actually have the AnyLogic model as part of a wider project that needs to liaise with other parts of the corporation.

Imagine Amazon building a new warehouse. AnyLogic can help with "Should we?" and "what will be the performance of design X?". However, many different teams will work in parallel on the warehouse design. Architects, structural engineers, lawyers (!)...

If these teams are already using the usd-standard for their warehouse, it would be an immense value-add if the AnyLogic team can seamlessly "hook in". Either by using the existing usd scenes and animate the model logic. Or the other way around by developing a base usd scene that other teams can use as a starting point.

The usd-standard is growing and may well become the 3D-data standard across many industries (see section "Background" below to learn why).

So it is a good business decision for AnyLogic (and us users) to be on board and be prepared. I do not want to talk to potential clients and try to talk them out of usd just because AnyLogic does not support it.

Being able to easily have your models animate in usd scenes is a really good addition to the already impressive capability set of AnyLogic.

There were quite a few more skeptical voices so let's explore and address them. Note that I am not trying to refute these. They are all valid.

Ok, I never heard the phrase and it is spot-on. However, we can argue all day long how bad "porn" is for management. It will not change the impact of good visuals, though. So this is a moot point.

You have more impact if you have good visuals.

This is a valid point. If you have 100 hrs to build a model, you can misdirect your precious time into visuals.

My advice: apply your skill-level and your tools such that you get the best visuals with lowest effort. AnyLogic, if handled well, gives you a lot of animation "for free". Use it!

If you learn the Omniverse setup, you suddenly get 100x better visuals for maybe 20% extra time. It is your call to decide if it is worth it in your situation. But it very well may be.

This may sound weird but I found this concern quite valid:

"There are videos on YT dealing with digital twins in Omniverse that in my opinion often create a false picture among management because definitions what a "digital twin" is vary strongly"

We may grow wrong expectations with hyper-realistic visuals. If it looks real, surely the underlying model is 100% exact as well, right?

However, it is too late to lament this. Management already sees hyper-realistic renders all the time. But now, us modelers can actually cater to their expectations as well. While building robust models, we can deliver those visuals. So this actually makes this a "pro" argument...

Well, this is tricky. The underlying advantages of improved visuals, collaboration and standard data formats are just very hard to quantify. So you may not see a measurable ROI.

It depends on each project, model, team and problem. But in my experience, these "soft" factors often have huge impacts.

One industry expert commented:

"I am not aware that anyone at our [huge] company is using it for factory planning. It is mostly AutoCAD.. For virtual commissioning tools like iPhysics, F.EE Sim etc. exist that already have a powerful physics engine and renderer as a standard."

To which I would say: Cool. No need for it then. Remember that AnyLogic only offers this as a free addition. Normal AnyLogic 3D rendering will not go away. You do not have to use the Omniverse connector.

It is just like the AnyLogic Cloud, Git integration, database, vertical libraries or GIS map: nice to have, not enforced to be used :) 

Alright, so when should you consider using this? Some simple heuristics (click to expand):

The usd-standard (universal scene description) has gained very strong momentum in recent years. It was first developed by Pixar (yes, Steve Jobs' movie studio) to enable hundreds of animators and designers collaborate on their 3D movies elegantly, including native version-control and handling large data.