ROS Bridge does not support finding ROS libraries from AMENT_PREFIX_PATH

[EzraBrooks]

Description

To get Isaac Sim's ROS Bridge to recognize my non-system installation of ROS (in my case, via RoboStack in Pixi - though there are numerous other ways to get into this situation) I had to modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

As modifying LD_LIBRARY_PATH is generally discouraged (I would even go as far as saying the setup shell scripts in ROS probably should not do this), I think the process that loads the RMW, etc. should ensure ${AMENT_PREFIX_PATH}/lib is added to the library path for dynamic loading on the current OS, preferably in such a position that it takes precedence over OS libraries.

Isaac Sim version

5.1.0

Operating System (OS)

Ubuntu 24.04

GPU Name

RTX 5090

GPU Driver and CUDA versions

Driver Version: 580.95.05 CUDA Version: 13.0

Logs

No response

Additional information

No response

[vick-yu]

Thanks for the suggestion. We’re discussing this internally and will update you here once we have any news to share.

[vick-yu]

Thanks for raising this and for the clear explanation of your setup and concerns around LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
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Internally, the current thinking is that AMENT_PREFIX_PATH is primarily intended for build-time configuration in the ROS 2 ecosystem, whereas LD_LIBRARY_PATH (and the platform-equivalent mechanisms) are meant for runtime library resolution. Since Isaac Sim is not building ROS packages itself and is only responsible for loading the RMW and related libraries at runtime, the ROS Bridge today relies on the standard runtime library search paths rather than interpreting AMENT_PREFIX_PATH directly.
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