How to…

• Can't see an element in a Revit view? Here are 30 reasons for that
• How to install the Camilion plugins
• Can't find an element in Revit

Last Revision: April 2022
Supported versions: Revit 2018 to Revit 2023

The following documentation explains in detail all the functionality of the Holmes plugin for Revit®.

About Holmes

Holmes is a plugin for Autodesk Revit® that helps the user find out why an element may be hidden in a view. To use this plugin, the element must be visible in at least one view in the project (3D or 2D view), because we need to select it in order to use the plugin.

Element Selection

The first step is to select the hidden element in a view in which it’s visible. You may perform this selection before starting the plugin.

Note: You must select only one element. Multiple object selection is not allowed.

Plugin sections

This plugin is divided into 4 sections as follows:

Section (a): Element Info

This section provides general information about the selected element such as:

• The element’s name
• The element’s category
• The element’s ID

Section (b): Choosing the view

Once you have selected your element, the section Where is it hidden? will display a list of views where Holmes detected that the element is hiding. Simply click on any view and the third section will display a message regarding the reason for the visibility impairment.

Note: Clicking on the Show all views checkbox will display all the views on which Holmes performed the visibility checks. All the greyed out views, either don’t apply or passed all the checks.

Section (c): Viewing the results

In the section Why is it hidden? a message will be displayed indicating one or more reasons for which the chosen element is currently hidden.

As of version 1.0 of the Holmes plugin, there are 13 tests being performed. By default, only the tests that don’t pass will be displayed on the message box.

Note: To display all tests, tick the Show all Tests checkbox. Passed tests display in gray color and not passed tests display in black color.

Section (d): Buttons & link

The Ok button closes the Holmes interface. The Request a new test link opens a dialog box where you can input information on what kind of test you’d like to see implemented for future versions of the plugin or other related queries.

List of tests performed

The following tests are performed on each view to determine if the element is visible in that view:

1. The category is permanently hidden
2. The element or category is temporarily hidden
3. The element is permanently hidden
4. Model categories are hidden
5. Annotation categories are hidden
6. Analytical Model categories are hidden
7. Workset is hidden in the view
8. Workset is hidden in all views
9. A filter applied on the view is hiding the element
10. The discipline of the view is hiding the element
11. The element’s override line color is set to white
12. The scale of the view is hiding the element
13. The element is outside of the view range