[maxkra15]

Description

The native demo gallery used browser-demo pictures for MicroDuck Warehouse and SONIC, retained a previous card's backend selection, and listed three focused examples as demos. This refreshes the previews and launch commands, expands the Zoo from five to twenty robot models, and moves the focused programs into the example catalog.

• Default MicroDuck Warehouse to Newton MJWarp and Newton GL, retain PhysX as an option, and list compatible visualizers for each backend.
• Reset physics and visualizer defaults when selecting a demo. Include the CUDA PyTorch backend and SONIC's model-download/inference dependencies in copied commands.
• Replace MicroDuck and SONIC placeholders with native captures. The SONIC image comes from the verified Newton MPM + Kit walk across gravel and sand.
• Arrange twenty Zoo models across display rows and stands, with gentle joint motion and a hovering Crazyflie. Add display-specific anchoring and actuator settings for stable MJWarp/PhysX playback, and an optional GL exposure setting for the updated lighting.
• Move Newton Block and Tackle, Snowball Smash, and Teapot Fill into examples, including their scripts, thumbnails, catalog entries, references, and existing test cases.

Screenshots

Zoo: previous preview and expanded showcase

Previous documentation thumbnail	Twenty-model Zoo with adjusted exposure

The expanded scene includes H1, G1, GR1T2, ANYmal, Spot, Go2, A1, Franka, UR10/UR10e, KUKA-Allegro, Sawyer, Kinova Gen3, Jaco, Flexiv Rizon, Shadow and Allegro hands, MicroDuck, SO-101, and Crazyflie.

Native demo previews

MicroDuck Warehouse	SONIC: G1 walking from gravel into sand

Command migration

These three programs now use isaaclab example; their scripts move from examples/demos/ to examples/. The changelog records the breaking CLI change.

Previous command	Replacement
isaaclab demo newton-block-and-tackle	isaaclab example newton-block-and-tackle
isaaclab demo snowball-smash	isaaclab example snowball-smash
isaaclab demo teapot-fill	isaaclab example teapot-fill

Validation

• Full uv run --no-sync isaaclab --format and changelog validation against origin/main passed.
• Clean uv run --no-sync isaaclab --docs build passed with warnings treated as errors.
• Browser checks passed for backend/visualizer defaults, native thumbnails, and demo/example classification.
• 43 focused checks passed: 35 CLI/catalog checks, six standalone discovery/docs/prelaunch contracts, and two moved-MPM import cases. Existing tests were updated at their owning boundaries; no duplicate simulation tests were added.
• Zoo native validation: 900 steps on MJWarp and PhysX, including reset at step 800; a two-environment MJWarp clone run also passed. MJWarp reported no solver-capacity overflows. These results were reused after confirming the final Zoo code is semantically unchanged and incoming main changes do not affect its physics/rendering path.
• Native previews were visually inspected. The SONIC capture was also fully decoded and verified at 3840×2160, 50 fps, 940 frames / 18.8 seconds.

Type of change

• Bug fix
• New feature
• Breaking change: the three focused programs require isaaclab example instead of isaaclab demo.
• Documentation update

Release backport

• Backport this pull request to the active release branch after it merges into main

Checklist

• I have read and understood the contribution guidelines.
• I have run the pre-commit checks with uv run isaaclab --format.
• I have made corresponding changes to the documentation.
• My changes generate no new warnings in the completed checks.
• I have validated the changed behavior with focused coverage and applied the test-audit criteria to test changes.
• I have added a changelog fragment for every touched source package.
• My name already exists in CONTRIBUTORS.md.