Simplifies device setting in SimulationCfg and AppLauncher

[Dhoeller19]

Description

Before setting up the device was tedious and redundant, and you would see code like:

sim_utils.SimulationCfg(device="cpu", use_gpu_pipeline=False, dt=0.01, physx=sim_utils.PhysxCfg(use_gpu=False))

With this MR, we simply set the desired device, and all the parameters, such as use_gpu_pipeline and use_gpu propagate automatically, resulting in the following:

sim_utils.SimulationCfg(device="cpu", dt=0.01, physx=sim_utils.PhysxCfg())

The command line input --cpu has been removed in favor of --device device_name , where valid options for device_name are cpu (run on CPU), cuda (run on GPU with device id 0), cuda:N (run on GPU with device id N, for example cuda:0).

Type of change

• Breaking Change

Checklist

• I have run the pre-commit checks with ./isaaclab.sh --format
• I have made corresponding changes to the documentation
• My changes generate no new warnings
• I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works
• I have updated the changelog and the corresponding version in the extension's config/extension.toml file
• I have added my name to the CONTRIBUTORS.md or my name already exists there

[jsmith-bdai]

Adding hunter to review AppLauncher or any docker related changes

[jsmith-bdai]

Looks great and is much needed to simplify things - still wonder if we're losing some testability in the future by removing the ability to specify GPU vs CPU for the various parts of pipeline.

An alternative approach (which would obviously complicate things, but make it a little more flexible) is to enable user to pass in either a string based device as you've implemented here or alternatively pass in a dictionary, containing keys/ values like:

device: 
{
    "use_gpu_pipeline": False,
    "physx_use_gpu": False,
    "tensor_device": "cuda" # Or any of the options we've created e.g. "cuda:0", "cpu"
}

Again, this is dependent on the underlying Isaac Sim's Simulation Context being able to still handle these permutations, which I think @Mayankm96 mentioned had been removed.

I double checked through tutorials / docs if this was used elsewhere and couldn't find anything too.

[Mayankm96]

This is a breaking change. I think once we merge it, we should bump up the Isaac Lab version and add the migration guide for this change. What do you think?

Also need to update version in changelog and extension.toml :)

[AndrejOrsula]

Hello,

Thanks for all your effort!

I just noticed that this PR creates conflicts for the two scripts that already use --device CLI argument for a different purpose. Corresponding examples in docs/source/setup/sample.rst will also need to be adjusted.

(commented here instead of opening a new issue because this PR is fresh)

[AndrejOrsula]

This script already uses --device to select the teleoperation device. I believe it has to be renamed in order to avoid conflicts with the changes from this PR.

[AndrejOrsula]

This script already uses --device to select the teleoperation device. I believe it has to be renamed in order to avoid conflicts with the changes from this PR.

[Dhoeller19]

Hi @AndrejOrsula, thanks a lot for the catch. Fix incoming very soon.