nvidia/PhysicalAI-Robotics-Locomanipulation-GRAIL
๐ข News [2026-07-15] Released task-general tracking policy checkpoints trained on the released data. Follow the tracking doc to use them to track our released motion data. [2026-07-14] Updated data/pickup_table and data/pickup_ground. If you downloaded them before this date, please re-download. Dataset Overview Tabletop Pickup Ground Pickup Tabletop Manipulation Ground Manipulation Sitting Curb Slopeโฆ See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/nvidia/PhysicalAI-Robotics-Locomanipulation-GRAIL.
๐ข News
- [2026-07-15] Released task-general tracking policy checkpoints trained on the released data. Follow the tracking doc to use them to track our released motion data.
- [2026-07-14] Updated
data/pickup_tableanddata/pickup_ground. If you downloaded them before this date, please re-download.
Dataset Overview
Description:
This dataset contains physics-validated 4D human-object interaction (HOI) trajectories for the Unitree G1 humanoid robot. It is generated by GRAIL (Generating Humanoid Loco-Manipulation from 3D Assets and Video Priors), an end-to-end pipeline that (1) acquires a 3D asset, (2) generates a synthetic character-object interaction video in Blender + Kling AI, (3) reconstructs the 4D HOI (SMPL-X human pose + object 6-DoF) from the video, (4) retargets the human motion to the G1 skeleton, and (5) drives a SONIC tracking policy in Isaac Lab โ the released motion data is what the simulated G1 + object realize in simulation.
The release is partitioned by HOI category. Each motion ships with: the source synthetic video, the 4D HOI reconstruction (SMPL-X + object pose), the retargeted G1 robot trajectory, the post-RL object trajectory, and the object's USD asset (textures preserved).
The repo also ships the submodule checkpoints required to re-run the full GRAIL pipeline end-to-end (GEM-SMPL human pose estimation + FoundationPose object 6-DoF tracking + SONIC task general tracking). Note: the released SONIC checkpoints are intended to help reproduce our pipeline by fine-tuning the policies from these warm-up checkpoints as documented [here](https://nvlabs.github.io/GRAIL/tracking.html#finetuning-a-pick-up-policy). Releasing the final task-general tracking policy checkpoints for the released dataset is on our TODO list.
License/Terms of Use:
Use of the released dataset is governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The bundled checkpoints under checkpoint/ retain their respective upstream licenses:
- NVIDIA-produced (
checkpoint/GEM-SMPL/outputs/,checkpoint/FoundationPose/,checkpoint/SONIC/) โ NVIDIA Open Model License Agreement. - Third-party (
checkpoint/GEM-SMPL/inputs/: HMR2, ViTPose, VIMO, YOLOv8x, SMPL-X body model) โ governed by the licenses of their respective upstream releases; please consult each upstream project before use.
Object USD assets under data/<hoi_category>/object_usd/ come from four asset sources, each with different downstream-license implications:
- RoboCasa-derived (
pickup_table,pickup_ground) โ derivative works of RoboCasa (UT Austin, NVIDIA), licensed under CC BY 4.0. Attribution to the RoboCasa Team is required when redistributing or building on these specific files. - ComAsset-derived (
advanced manipulation) โ sourced from ComAsset (Kim et al., ECCV 2024), licensed under ODC-By v1.0. Attribution to the ComAsset authors is required. Individual meshes in ComAsset are originally collected from SketchFab and carry their own per-mesh licenses (listed incategories.jsonof the upstream ComAsset repo) โ consult those before any redistribution, as some may impose restrictions beyond the CC BY-NC 4.0 terms that govern the rest of this dataset. - Hunyuan3D-2.1 generated (
advanced manipulation,stairs) โ outputs of Hunyuan3D-2.1. Per the Tencent Hunyuan 3D 2.1 Community License, model outputs are user-owned and not subject to model-license restrictions, so these are released here under CC BY-NC 4.0. The Hunyuan3D-2.1 model itself (not used or redistributed by this dataset) carries territorial, MAU, and acceptable-use constraints โ consult the upstream license if you intend to use the model. - Procedurally generated (
curb,slope,stairs) โ GRAIL-original outputs, released under CC BY-NC 4.0.
The license: cc-by-nc-4.0 declared in the dataset metadata applies to the GRAIL-original outputs: motion trajectories, 4D HOI reconstructions, and per-motion metadata under data/<hoi_category>/{robot,objects,recon,meta}/, plus procedurally generated and Hunyuan3D-generated object assets. Bundled checkpoints under checkpoint/, RoboCasa-derived assets, and ComAsset-derived assets retain their respective upstream licenses as described above.
Use Case:
GRAIL is intended for use by individuals and professionals in fields such as robotics learning, machine learning, computer vision, and physics-based animation. Specific use cases include:
- 4D HOI reconstruction โ study 4D human-object interaction from a paired dataset of (synthetic video, SMPL-X recon, object 6-DoF, retargeted humanoid trajectory).
- Humanoid policy training โ supervise RL or imitation-learning trackers on physically validated reference motions to learn whole-body loco-manipulation skills on the Unitree G1.
- Sim-to-real transfer โ use the G1 trajectories directly as targets for a deployable controller, or as kinematic references for a learned residual policy.
Reference(s):
- Project page: <https://research.nvidia.com/labs/dair/grail/>
- Paper: <https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.05160>
- Code: <https://github.com/NVlabs/GRAIL>
- Documentation: <https://NVlabs.github.io/GRAIL/>
Dataset Layout:
nvidia/PhysicalAI-Robotics-Locomanipulation-GRAIL/
โโโ data/<hoi_category>/
โ โโโ video/<hoi_category>__<object>__<NNN>.mp4 # source synthetic video
โ โโโ recon/<hoi_category>__<object>__<NNN>.pkl # 4D HOI recon (SMPL-X + object 6-DoF)
โ โโโ robot/<hoi_category>__<object>__<NNN>.pkl # post-RL G1 robot trajectory (29 body DOFs + hand_dof_pos)
โ โโโ objects/<hoi_category>__<object>__<NNN>.pkl # post-RL object 6-DoF trajectory
โ โโโ meta/<hoi_category>__<object>__<NNN>.pkl # per-motion metadata (lengths, contact flags, source IDs)
โ โโโ object_usd/<hoi_category>__<object>__<NNN>.usd # OpenUSD object asset
โ โ โโโ textures/<basename>/ # per-USD texture subdir, refs rewritten in the USD
โ โโโ bps/<hoi_category>__<object>__<NNN>.npy # BPS encoding of object 3D shape (only in pickup table/ground)
โโโ checkpoint/
โโโ GEM-SMPL/ # SMPL-X human pose estimation weights (HMR2, ViTPose, VIMO, YOLO, HMR4D)
โโโ FoundationPose/weights/ # object 6-DoF estimator (refiner + scorer)
โโโ SONIC/models/ # SONIC tracking checkpointsThe 3-digit NNN index restarts at 0 within each <object>.
Dataset Statistics per HOI Category:
Additional categories (tabletop / ground manipulation) are planned for subsequent releases.
Additional Statistics:
Data Visualization:
Released data can be rendered into kinematic-replay MP4s using GRAIL data visualization. The output can then be browsed using GRAIL web visualizer for hover-to-play previews.
git clone https://github.com/NVlabs/GRAIL.git && cd GRAIL
# follow the installation guide to set up the `sonic` conda env
conda activate sonic
export DISPLAY=:1
# Batch โ render up to 16 motions (default), defaults match the release (xyzw quats)
bash grail/visualization/scripts/visualize.sh \
data/pickup_table
# Or render a single motion from its robot/<seq>.pkl
bash grail/visualization/scripts/visualize_single.sh \
data/pickup_table/robot/pickup_table__apple_0__000.pklOutputs land alongside the motion library so the same directory works as input to the web visualizer:
data/<hoi_category>/vis/
โโโ <seq>.mp4 one per motion
โโโ all_motions_combined.mp4 concat (only when --max_videos = 0)
โโโ examples_grid.mp4 4ร4 or 2ร2 grid (only when --max_videos = 0)Knobs you may want to set:
Data Collection Method:
Hybrid โ Automatic. Each motion is the deterministic output of the GRAIL pipeline:
- 3D asset acquisition โ RoboCasa-derived meshes, AI-generated meshes from Hunyuan3D-2.1, or procedural terrain assets. No real-world scans of identifiable objects.
- 2D HOI generation โ a Blender rendering places a SMPL-X-rigged character with the object in an synthetic scene; a video exhibiting character-object interaction is generated through Kling AI.
- 4D HOI reconstruction โ SMPL-X body pose recovered via GEM-SMPL (HMR2 + ViTPose + VIMO + HMR4D); object 6-DoF via FoundationPose conditioned on a SAM2 mask and a MoGe depth prior; jointly optimized in a multi-stage HOI optimizer.
- Retargeting โ SMPL-X human pose is retargeted to the Unitree G1 skeleton via the GMR IK + temporal-smoothing engine. Hand DOFs and per-motion USD assets are assembled in the same pass.
- Task general tracking โ the retargeted motion is used as a tracking reference for a SONIC policy in Isaac Lab. The post-RL object trajectory is the one realized by the simulated G1 + object under contact dynamics โ guaranteed to be physically feasible by construction.
Disclaimer
NVIDIA believes Trustworthy AI is a shared responsibility and we have established policies and practices to enable development for a wide array of AI applications. When downloaded or used in accordance with our terms of service, developers should work with their internal model team to ensure this dataset and the downstream models trained on it meet requirements for the relevant industry and use case and addresses unforeseen product misuse.
Ethical Considerations:
GRAIL trajectories are synthetic. No real individuals appear in the source videos, SMPL-X reconstructions, or any other modality โ the entire pipeline is synthetic-character-only (the body model is parametric SMPL-X driven by retargeted character animation; no real-person mocap appears in the released motions). The 3D objects are AI-generated, procedurally generated, or licensed from synthetic asset libraries.
Users training policies on GRAIL are responsible for the safety properties of those policies once deployed on physical humanoids; the dataset itself is a kinematic reference and does not encode safety constraints, controller stability margins, or hardware torque/velocity envelopes. The Unitree G1 trajectories are guaranteed physically feasible in the Isaac Lab simulation environment under the SONIC tracker โ sim-to-real transfer requires additional validation by the integrating team.
For more detailed information on ethical considerations for the upstream models GRAIL builds on, see the corresponding model cards: `nvidia/GEM-X` (human pose estimation) and the FoundationPose project page.
