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ROS 2 Navigation with Block World Generator — Isaac Sim Documentation

Last updated: 12/12/2025

Title: ROS 2 Navigation with Block World Generator#

URL Source: https://docs.isaacsim.omniverse.nvidia.com/latest/ros2_tutorials/tutorial_ros2_navigation_block_world.html

Published Time: Tue, 21 Oct 2025 19:25:26 GMT

Markdown Content: Learning Objectives#

In this example, you learn how to:

  • Generate a 3D world using a 2D occupancy map

  • Perform navigation with a robot in the generated 3D world with Nav2

Prerequisite

  • ROS 2 and Nav2 are installed, and ROS2 bridge is enabled.

    • Appropriate ros2_ws is sourced so that carter_navigation and isaac_ros_navigation_goal are inside your workspace.

Note

In Windows 10 or 11, depending on your machine’s configuration, RViz2 might not open properly.

Setting Up Environment and Robot#

Generate 3D World#

First, let us load the 3D world using the Block World Generator within Isaac Sim

  • Go to the top menu bar and click Tools > Robotics > Block World Generator.

  • Press Load Image button and open the image of the occupancy map located under carter_navigation/maps/carter_warehouse_navigation.png. A window titled Visualization will appear.

  • Press the Generate button to create geometry corresponding to the input occupancy map in the Stage.

The generated 3D world automatically has a collision mesh applied for all the occupied pixels.

Add Robot in Scene#

Add a Carter robot, which has all ROS 2 OmniGraph Nodes setup, into this scene.

  • Go to the Isaac Sim Content browser and click Isaac Sim>Samples>ROS2>Robots.

  • Drag and drop the Nova_Carter_ROS.usd asset into the scene generated in the previous step (anywhere in the space bounded by the walls and on the ground)

Add Clock in Scene#

To ensure all external ROS 2 nodes reference simulation time, a ROS_Clock graph needs to be added, which contains a Ros2PublishClock node responsible for publishing the simulation time to the /clock topic.

Follow the steps in Graph Shortcut to add a clock in the scene.

Running Navigation#

We now have the 3D scene and robot set up to run the Nav2 stack.

  • Click on Play in Isaac Sim to begin simulation.

  • Open a new terminal and source the <ros2_ws> that contains the carter_navigation package. Run the ROS 2 launch file to begin Nav2.

ros2 launch carter_navigation carter_navigation.launch.py RViz2 will open and begin loading the occupancy map. If a map does not appear, repeat the previous step.

  • Use the 2D Pose Estimate button to re-set the position of the robot. Make sure you do this before setting a goal and the pose estimate is approximately correct.

  • Click on the Navigation2 Goal button and then click and drag at the desired location point in the map. Nav2 will now generate a trajectory and the robot will start moving towards its destination.

Summary#

In this tutorial, you:

  1. Generated 3D world using 2D occupancy map with Block World Generator.

  2. Added a robot into this world and running Nav2 with it.

Next Steps#

Continue on to the next tutorial in our ROS2 Tutorials series, MoveIt 2 to learn how to connect the manipulator up with MoveIt 2.

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