Some columns not appearing in 3D view when only Column and Floor Categories visible

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I'm working on a building model for my university course. I'm creating a 3D view to show the structural frame of my design and in this view showing only columns and floor plates, only some of the columns are visible. The other columns show when the walls category is turned visible. How do I make sure all columns are associated with the column category and not with walls?

[syman2000]

Did you use Architectural column or you use Structural column? Both set as different category as Column and Structural Column. Turn both on.

[Anonymous]

Architectural columns. I made sure both are turned on.

[syman2000]

There is your problem. Architectural column will automatically merge with Architectural wall. This means the column will inherit wall properties. You can try unjoin the column with the wall or replace them with structural column so those wall won't automatically join.

[Anonymous]

Thank you- I'll try that out.

[barthbradley]

Odd.  Are the Columns that hide with the Walls actually Columns?  Or Walls pretending to be Columns? 😉

If pretend Columns, then create a View Filter to filter them into or out of the View.  

[dan_cfmoller]

I have the same issue in 2025. It is very frustrating, and I don't really understand the logic behind this. Just because they are joined with walls, they still fall into the category of columns. And it is quite important in several situations to filter only for structural elements. I hope Autodesk will listen and fix this issue.

[dan_cfmoller]

workaround I found is go in to the family editor of the column, change it to structural column, load it back into the project. However, by default structural columns are not room bounding, so you will get a bunch of error messages of rooms being in the same area, so in order to avoid that you need to find a parameter in the family editor called something like "material behavior in project" (which is not the actual material of the column) and set that to concrete. Now magically your modified structural columns will not just show up in 3D when joined, but will also remain room bounding. This of course is ridiculously overcomplicated and does not make any sense, so I would still appreciate a fix on the behaviour of regular architectural columns.