Element X-Ray
FreeDiagnose why an element is invisible — 17 checks including category, template, workset, phase, filters, crop, view range with one-click auto-fix. · Explore the live interface below - every control works exactly as it does inside Revit®.
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Test it Live - exactly as if you are in Revit
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Get Started in Minutes
Four simple steps to bring Element X-Ray directly into your Revit® environment.
1
Create Account
Sign up for a free NexionTools account - no credit card required.
2
Download Installer
One installer, 52 professional Revit® tools. Under 15 MB.
3
Open Revit
Element X-Ray appears in your ribbon automatically - ready to use.
4
Start Building
It's free - start using it immediately on any project.
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Why Element X-Ray exists
"Why can I not see this element in this view?" is the question with the longest answer in Revit. It might be the view range, a filter, a phase, a worksection, a category override, a crop, a design option, an element hidden by someone three weeks ago. You work through the possibilities one at a time, and the list is long enough that you usually give up and redraw the thing.
How Element X-Ray works
Select the element - from your Revit selection, which is picked up automatically, or by typing its element ID.
Choose the view you are asking about, from a searchable tree of the project's views. It does not have to be the view you are in, but Revit switches to it to run the diagnostic, so expect to land there.
Run the diagnostic and sixty separate checks are made against that element in that view. The results split into the issues found and a collapsed group of everything that passed, with a green all-clear banner when nothing is wrong.
The results tell you what is actually suppressing it, rather than leaving you to guess in order - and about ten of the causes carry a one-click fix on the result card, with a Fix All button alongside.
Copy Report puts the whole diagnostic on the clipboard, which is what goes into the RFI.
Before
Invisible-element problems are solved by working through a mental checklist and often by giving up and remodelling.
After
You ask the tool why, and it tells you which of the sixty possible reasons applies - and offers to fix about ten of them on the spot.
When to reach for it
- An element that exists in the model but refuses to appear on a sheet.
- Something visible in one view and not in an apparently identical one.
- Teaching someone why Revit visibility works the way it does, with a real example in front of them.
What it does not do
- It diagnoses one element against one view at a time. It is a debugging tool, not a project-wide audit. If several elements are selected it takes the first one.
- Every cause is reported; roughly ten of them can be fixed from the results panel, and the rest - view range, phase filter, design option, discipline - are decisions it deliberately leaves to you.
- The fixes do not check elements out on a workshared model, so a fix on an element owned by someone else fails with a Revit error mid-run, and Fix All carries on past it.
- Sheets are not in the view list - only the views placed on them.
- It works on the open document, so an element inside a link is diagnosed by opening that link. Family documents and read-only documents are refused up front.
- A debug log is written to the NexionTools data folder on every diagnostic, overwritten each time.
Questions
- Why is my element not visible in a Revit view?
- There are dozens of possible reasons - view range, crop, filters, phase, design options, worksets, category visibility, per-element hiding, and more. That is precisely the problem: the answer is one of many and Revit does not tell you which. This runs the checks and names the cause.
- Can I check an element against a view I am not currently in?
- Yes. You pick the element and separately pick the view you are asking about, from a searchable tree of the project's views. Revit switches to that view to run the diagnostic, so expect to land there - and note that sheets themselves are not in the list, only the views placed on them.
- Does it change anything?
- Diagnosing changes nothing. But about ten of the checks come with a one-click fix - unhide the category, unhide the element, turn the filter back on, clear the element override, expand the crop - and those do write to the model. Each fix is its own undo entry, so a Fix All covering three issues is three Ctrl+Z presses.
- Is this tool free?
- Yes. Element X-Ray is one of the free tools in the suite - no licence needed.