Examples

DART 7’s Python examples use the dartpy World facade. The smallest useful example builds a scene in code, steps it, and inspects the body state:

import dartpy as dart

world = dart.World(time_step=1.0 / 1000.0)

ground = world.add_rigid_body("ground", position=(0.0, 0.0, -0.5))
ground.is_static = True
ground.set_collision_shape(dart.CollisionShape.box((1.0, 1.0, 0.05)))

box = world.add_rigid_body("box", mass=1.0, position=(0.0, 0.0, 1.0))
box.set_collision_shape(dart.CollisionShape.box((0.1, 0.1, 0.1)))

world.enter_simulation_mode()
for _ in range(100):
    world.step()

print(f"t = {world.time:.3f} s, box z = {float(box.translation[2]):.3f} m")

For the same first step with more explanation, see Hello, DART.

Interactive demos

The source tree’s maintained Python example surface is the py-demos runner under python/examples/demos. It hosts World scenes in the same Filament viewer used by the C++ demo app:

pixi run py-demos                                # open the default rigid_body scene
pixi run py-demos -- --scene rigid_solver_compare # compare solver behavior
pixi run py-demos -- --list                      # print the scene catalog
pixi run py-demo-capture -- --scene rigid_body --frames 2 --width 640 --height 360

The demo catalog includes rigid bodies, multibody contact, solver comparisons, deformable examples, differentiable simulation scenes, and visual debugging packets. Start with python/examples/README.md and python/examples/demos/README.md in the source checkout when you need the current scene list and command-line options.

Legacy DART 6 examples

If you need Skeleton/BodyNode/Joint examples such as URDF loading with World.addSkeleton(), use the stable DART 6 documentation at https://dart.readthedocs.io/en/stable/. Those APIs are not the DART 7 Python-first path documented here.