Why does one filter setting give two different results ?

[Angayo]

As usual stuff was invisible and I wasted much time trying different things out. (‘Reveal Hidden Elements’ didn’t work.) I wanted to ask a question here involving cable trays and therefore I wanted a particular floor plan to show cable trays so that I could show a picture of the problem.

Why the cable trays are invisible has somehow to do with filter settings.

Here is a particular setting that results in a cable tray shown in white :

Here is the same setting that results in the same cable tray show in green :

What I did to get from the first to the second is to first check ‘V/G Overrides Filter’ (which made the cable tray visible), uncheck both visibilities in ‘Visibility/Graphics Overrides…’ and close both windows. Then reversed the settings (undoing what I had just done, without changing anything else). The cable tray remained visible.

What is going on and is there a simple way to make stuff visible ?

[L.Maas]

Not easy to guess with only those two screenshots.

One filter setting does not give two different results. 

The thing is that when you check a setting and then uncheck it, it does not automatically mean that you return to the original settings. In your case when you check  the "Include" at ‘V/G Overrides Filter’. What happens that it will add and apply the filters from the view template to your view. 

When you now uncheck the "Include" at ‘V/G Overrides Filter’ it will NOT remove the filters and they are still applied to your view. 

What the "Include" setting does is that when checked the settings from the view template will be applied to your view. When it is unchecked it will not change the settings of your view. It odes not mean it will undo the settings.

Visibility overrides is one of the major Revit concepts you have to get familiar with. After model is completed it is the most important way to get to view what you need to document. It will take time to get familiar with this concept and to understand why things are happening and where to look for to solve your issues. Because it is such an important part it has lots of different settings and different hierarchy levels. Especially in the beginning this can be confusing and sometimes difficult to trace why certain things are happening.

[Angayo]

I can’t reproduce the results. By meddling with the visibility in the view template and with the offset and reference plane I can toggle the visibility of cable trays. Last time that didn’t work.

What is the logic behind checking  ‘include’ applying the filter, while unchecking not doing anything ? According to the help article ‘About View Templates’ one can apply or assign a view template. Assigning appears to be a permanent application. What the help doesn’t say but I imagine these actions do is apply/assign the included/activated parts of a view template. So if the Filters part of an assigned view template is included, it is applied to the view and any changes to the Filters part will subsequently also be applied. If the Filters part is deselected/deactivated, the Filters part is no longer assigned to the view.

Is that correct so far ?

What I don’t get is how filters filters work regarding (in)visibility.

In the image there are some cable trays on the floor plan, but they are invisible, probably because the cable trays aren’t checked in in the view template. Checking them makes them visible. V/G Overrides Filters is however included.

The template includes a filter I made for the occasion : Cable_trays.

The filter is set to visible. What does that mean ? The dialog window contains a help button (on the bottom right outside of the image) which opens the help article ‘About Controlling Visibility and Graphic Display of Elements Using Filters’, which does not explain that.

The Cable_trays filter is the following :

It should include all cable trays.

Now, if I set the cable trays to visible in Model Categories, they become visible :

Now if I deactivate V/G Overrides Filters, nothing happens, which makes sense. If I then turn off the Cable_trays filter, still nothing happens, which again makes sense (since the filter settings are supposed to be ignored after I deactivated the Filters part) :

Now if I activate V/G Overrides Filters again, the cable trays disappear :

So it appears that setting a filter to visible does nothing. Setting a filter to invisible (i.e. not checking the Visibility check box) makes the stuff it applies to invisible.

Hence, of the two visibility settings I tried, the one set to invisible negates the setting of the other.

Is that correct ?

[ToanDN]

When you check VG overrides filter in a View template, the filters apply to
the Views under this template.

When you uncheck VG overrides filter in the View template, the filters are
still there, but they now are independent from the template, so any changes
to the VG overrides filter in View template have zero effect from this
point. It does not undo the filters if that is what you expect.