PhysX Lidar

The PhysX SDK Lidar sensor is deprecated. Use the Physics Raycast Sensor (isaacsim.sensors.experimental.physics.RaycastSensor) as the replacement for rotating raycast-based lidar.

Concept mapping

PhysX SDK Lidar	Physics Raycast Sensor
rotationRate	rayTimeOffsets. Distribute rays across azimuthal columns and assign each column a time offset within the sweep period (1.0 / rotation_rate). The sensor fires only the rays whose offsets fall within the current physics step.
Horizontal / vertical resolution	rayDirections. Compute Cartesian direction vectors for each beam at the desired azimuth and elevation angles.
minRange / maxRange	minRange / maxRange. Same semantics.
drawLines	Use the Debug Draw RayCast OmniGraph node connected to the Isaac Read Physics Raycast Sensor node outputs.
_range_sensor Python interface (get_linear_depth_data, get_point_cloud_data)	RaycastSensor.get_sensor_reading() returns depths, hit positions, hit normals, and optionally hit prim paths.
enable_semantics / get_prim_data	reportHitPrimPaths attribute. When enabled, the sensor reading includes the USD prim path of each hit surface.
Setting rotationRate to 0.0 (fire all rays every step)	Omit rayTimeOffsets. Without time offsets all rays fire every physics step.

Interactive example

The Physics Raycast Sensor example includes a rotating sensor configuration with time offsets that produces a 360-degree sweep:

• GUI: Open Robotics Examples > Sensors > Physics Raycast Sensor and click Load Scene.

• Source code: source/extensions/isaacsim.sensors.physics.examples/isaacsim/sensors/physics/examples/raycast_sensor.py

See Physics raycast sensor for the full documentation, including Python API usage and OmniGraph workflows.