README.md

BrickSim

A Physics-Based Simulator for Manipulating Interlocking Brick Assemblies

Website • Paper • Quickstart • Video

Quickstart

Prerequisites

• x86-64 Linux platform. Support for other platforms is coming.
• Ubuntu 22.04+ or another Linux distribution with GLIBC >= 2.35, GLIBCXX >= 3.4.30, and CXXABI >= 1.3.13
• uv package manager
• A working NVIDIA driver compatible with Isaac Sim requirements

Install from Source

We use uv for package management. If you don't have it installed, please refer to Installing uv.

# Install required tools (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt install git wget unzip

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/intelligent-control-lab/BrickSim BrickSim
cd BrickSim

# Download the prebuilt native extension to shorten setup time
./scripts/download_prebuilt_native.sh

# Alternatively, if you want to build the native extension from source, run:
#  sudo apt install build-essential xz-utils zstd
#  ./scripts/build.sh

# Set up the Python environment and install dependencies
uv sync --locked

Install as a Python Package

You can install the bricksim package from our nightly build registry. Note that the published Python packages do not include demos or experiment scripts.

uv pip install "bricksim[all]" \
  --index https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/bricksim/bricksim/python/simple/ \
  --override <(printf 'pywin32==306 ; sys_platform == "win32"\n')

Or, if you want to add BrickSim to pyproject.toml:

1. Add the following override to your pyproject.toml (to mitigate Isaac Sim's dependency issue):

   [tool.uv]
   override-dependencies = [
     'pywin32==306 ; sys_platform == "win32"',
   ]

2. Add the bricksim dependency:

   uv add "bricksim[all]" \
     --index bricksim=https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/bricksim/bricksim/python/simple/

Run Demos

# Open an empty stage to play interactively
uv run bricksim

# Run the assembly demo
uv run bricksim demos/demo_assembly.py

Other demos include:

• demos/demo_inhand.py for in-hand manipulation experiments
• demos/demo_keyboard_teleop.py for keyboard-driven interaction
• demos/demo_teleop.py for teleoperation, recording, and replay workflows
  • The teleoperation demo expects the lerobot package plus a configured leader device path inside demos/demo_teleop.py.

Development

Repository Layout

Path	Purpose
native/	C++ native extension
python/	Python extension and API
demos/	Demos
experiments/	Research and evaluation scripts
resources/	USD files and other assets
scripts/	Development and build scripts

Generating Type Checker Configuration

Generate the Pyright and ty configuration for type analysis and completion in editors like VSCode:

uv run bricksim-type-configs

We recommend installing the ty extension for VSCode auto-completion, as it's much faster at handling Isaac Sim's many dependencies.

Building the C++ Extension

If you make changes to the C++ code in native/, you need to re-compile the native extension for the changes to take effect.

./scripts/build.sh

# To also build & run the tests, use:
RUN_TESTS=1 ./scripts/build.sh

Citation

If you use BrickSim in your research, please cite:

@article{wen2026bricksim,
    title = {BrickSim: A Physics-Based Simulator for Manipulating Interlocking Brick Assemblies},
    author = {Wen, Haowei and Liu, Ruixuan and Piao, Weiyi and Li, Siyu and Liu, Changliu},
    journal = {arXiv:2603.16853},
    year = {2026},
    eprint = {2603.16853},
    archiveprefix = {arXiv},
    primaryclass = {cs.RO},
    url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16853}
}

Attributions

Package repository hosting is graciously provided by Cloudsmith. Cloudsmith is the only fully hosted, cloud-native, universal package management solution, that enables your organization to create, store and share packages in any format, to any place, with total confidence.