Release Notes#

Current Release#

Kit 108.0 Release Highlights#

Release Date: August 2025

Omniverse Kit SDK 108.0 accelerates physical AI development with breakthrough rendering quality and performance improvements. The world’s most advanced real-time path tracing (RTX Real-Time 2.0) is now the default renderer, delivering significantly improved visual fidelity and correctness for complex materials - essential for massive-scale digital twins and robotics simulation.

Key advancements include Universal Just-in-Time Scene Optimization (UJITSO), RTX-based Gaussian splatting, and major live streaming architecture improvements. Updated integrations of USD 25.02 and Python 3.12 provide enhanced performance, security, and workflow alignment for industrial applications.

This release includes breaking changes that may require updates to existing extensions and applications.

Important: Due to substantial platform changes, please review our comprehensive Migration Guide before upgrading to ensure compatibility with your existing projects and extensions.

What’s New in Kit SDK 108.0#

RTX Renderer Improvements#

Real-Time 2.0 Mode: The Real-Time 2.0 Mode is now enabled by default.

Real-Time 2.0 matches or exceeds the performance of the old Real-Time mode, while providing visual fidelity that approaches that of the reference Interactive mode. As a full path-tracing solution, Real-Time 2.0 removes a number of limitations with the old Real-Time mode, particularly around transmissive materials like glass, and is simple to use, requiring no configuration of settings for the vast majority of applications.

Note: For a comprehensive overview of all new features, improvements, and fixes, please refer to the detailed RTX Renderer 108.0 Release Notes.

Omniverse Live Streaming: Major Architecture Improvements#

Live streaming capabilities feature major architectural improvements that unlock new possibilities for remote collaboration and distributed workflows. These changes enable teams to stream high-fidelity 4K content to multiple clients simultaneously, transforming how organizations approach remote design reviews and real-time collaboration.

Key Updates:

Multi-Stream Support: Updated livestream extensions now support multiple outgoing and incoming streams to different clients from the same process, greatly expanding capabilities for diverse streaming scenarios
Enhanced Performance: Improved streaming performance up to 4K@60fps, ensuring smoother and higher-fidelity live streaming experience
Improved Observability: New SRE requirements allow external services to query streaming state (initializing, ready for connection, connected) and ensure Quality of Service metrics are available
Expanded Use Cases: Provides a solid foundation for enterprise-grade Omniverse streaming solutions across Direct Connections, Kit App Streaming, NVCF/OVC 2.0, Cloud Hosted, and Self Hosted deployments

Important: For comprehensive documentation, including migration guides and detailed connection scenarios, please refer to the Live Streaming documentation.

Asset Validator Enhancements#

Asset Validator features improved organizational capabilities, expanded validation coverage for physics and specialized extensions, and permissive Apache 2.0 licensing. These improvements lay the foundation for future configurable validation profiles.

Asset Requirements: The Asset Validator extension introduces new, detailed Documentation and a new API for the definition and registration of so-called “content requirements”. Over time, “requirements” will replace the existing “Categories” method of organization and feed into higher level features such as configurable “Asset Profiles”

NOTE: This feature is currently opt-in and needs to be enabled by setting the "omni.asset_validator.ui".capabilities.enabled setting to True

Licensing Update: The Asset Validator is now permissively license with the Apache 2.0 license

Physics Validation Rules: Comprehensive Validation Rules for USDPhysics

Additional Validator Extensions: Additional validation rules are provided via a number of extensions:

Scene Optimizer Validation Rules: omni.scene.optimizer.validators
Physx Validation Rules: omni.physx.bundle
Isaac Sim Validation Rules: isaacsim.asset.validation

Note: For comprehensive documentation on Asset Validator, refer to the latest Omni Asset Validator documentation.

Scene Optimizer Enhancements#

The Scene Optimizer extension introduces new operations and asset validators that significantly reduce time spent on manual scene cleanup and optimization tasks. These tools help identify optimization opportunities automatically, streamlining workflows for teams working with large, complex 3D environments.

New Asset Validators:

Primitive Mesh Identifier: Identifies meshes that can be fitted to primitive shapes for optimization opportunities
Sparse Mesh Validator: Detects meshes with sparse geometry that may benefit from optimization
Duplicate Material Checker: Identifies duplicate materials across the scene for consolidation
Coinciding Meshes Checker: Finds overlapping or coinciding geometry for cleanup

New Operations:

Box Clip Operation: Efficiently remove geometry outside specified bounding volumes
Dice Meshes Operation: Split meshes into grids to optimize scene for spatial acceleration structures, such as those used for rendering
Fit Primitives Operation: Automatically fit primitive shapes to existing geometry for simplified representations

Note: For complete details on all Scene Optimizer improvements, see the Scene Optimizer 108.0 Release Notes.

Major Platform Updates#

Pixar USD 25.02 Integration#

USD support now includes Pixar USD 25.02 (upgraded from USD 24.05), delivering noticeable performance improvements in daily workflows - from faster scene loading to more responsive editing of complex compositions.

Key USD 25.02 Benefits:

Boost Dependency Removal: OpenUSD no longer requires boost as a core dependency, simplifying builds and reducing external requirements
Color Space Management: New UsdColorSpaceAPI and UsdColorSpaceDefinitionAPI for comprehensive color space handling and transformations
Namespace Editing Completion: Full relocates support enables complex scene restructuring workflows across composition arcs
Sublayer Change Processing: Optimized processing for adding, removing, and muting sublayers enables more efficient organizational and departmental workflows, particularly beneficial for asset structuring operations in industrial layout, planning, and robotics where it is beneficial to segment workflows into separate sublayers that contribute to a unified scene

Note: Kit does not yet provide UX support for color space management or namespace editing features. These capabilities are accessible through the USD Python interface for advanced users.

Important: See specific guidance in the Kit Migration Guide for USD 25.02.

Python 3.12 Support#

Kit SDK now supports Python 3.12, enabling developers to write cleaner, more maintainable code with better debugging capabilities and more intuitive error messages.

Key Python 3.12 Features:

Enhanced F-String Parsing: More flexible f-string syntax allowing previously disallowed expressions and nested quotes (PEP 701)
Improved Error Messages: Even better error reporting with typo suggestions to help developers debug issues faster
New Type Annotation Syntax: Simplified generic class syntax for cleaner, more readable type definitions (PEP 695)
Advanced Debugging API: New debugging and profiling capabilities for better development tools integration (PEP 669)

Important: Some Python 3.12 language changes may require developers to update their existing Python code for compatibility. Please review your extensions and scripts to ensure they work correctly with the new Python version.

String Safety#

String safety enhancements provide better security and stability for Omniverse Kit, creating a more reliable foundation for mission-critical applications.

This multi-stage API upgrade process seeks to use safer string_view passing rather than error-prone C-style strings, creating a more robust and secure foundation. Changes to ITokens, IDictionary, and ISettings add string_view versions of functions (named with an S suffix) which are now used internally.

Migration Path: Future releases will continue this migration, ultimately providing a fully safe API for string processing.

For more detailed information on this migration, please refer to the Migration Guide.

Additional Resources#

Kit SDK Documentation