Quick start
- In Revit open the Add-Ins tab and find the Smart3DView panel.
- Select a few elements (pipes, ducts, a room's walls…) in any view — or see other ways to choose the area.
- Click Smart 3D View. The area opens in its own window that you can move to a second screen.
- Look around: Shift + middle-mouse drag orbits, middle-mouse drag pans, the wheel zooms. Pick a tone at the bottom right.
Clicking the button again with a new selection updates the same window.
Choosing what to open
| When you click the button… | Smart3DView opens |
|---|---|
| Elements are selected | A box around the selection (+30 cm on every side). |
| Nothing is selected, a 3D view with an active section box | That section box. |
| Nothing is selected, a plan view | Drag a rectangle; the height comes from the plan's view range. |
| Nothing is selected, a section or elevation view | Opens directly: the view's crop region, as deep as its far clip (about 6 m when far clipping is off). |
Linked models are included. In a 3D view, elements and categories you have hidden stay hidden.
Navigating
| Action | Mouse |
|---|---|
| Select an element | Left click (its name, type and ID appear at the bottom). Esc clears. |
| Orbit | Shift + middle-button drag — around the selected element, otherwise around the point under the cursor. |
| Pan | Middle-button (or right-button) drag |
| Zoom | Mouse wheel, towards the cursor |
| Fit | Double-click or F (selected element, or everything). Home returns to the default 3D angle. Under the view cube, Perspective / Orthographic (O) switches the projection. |
Tones, Colored & Detailed modes
The round buttons at the bottom right switch the look (keys 1–7): White, Light gray, Gray, Dark, Paper (a hand-drawn pencil sketch on an ice-white background: every element and every cut face outlined, lines slightly overshooting), Colored and Detailed (the default). Faces cut by the section box are drawn as solid poché.
Detailed mode gives every element type its own color so equipment is easy to tell apart: walls gray, floors and ceilings light, doors near white, windows and mullions dark metal, structure concrete, cable trays and conduits metallic, ducts galvanized, mechanical equipment violet, electrical equipment amber, lighting yellow, sanitary fixtures white. Pipes are teal, ducts galvanized, sprinklers red.
Colored mode gives the host model and every linked model its own pastel color, so you see at a glance which file an element comes from. The colors are shown next to the names in the model list at the top left.
Editing the section box
- Click Box (B). The box outline and six blue handles appear.
- Drag a handle to move that face in or out — the cut updates instantly.
- Turn on Move (M) — or hold Ctrl while dragging — to slide the whole box along that axis.
- ↺ resets the box.
Inside the area that was read from Revit everything is instant. If you grow or move the box beyond it, only the elements that are new are read from Revit when you release the mouse — what is already loaded is kept, so growing the box is quick (the camera stays where it is). The status bar shows how long each step took. The area is read in small parts: Revit and the window do not freeze, the status bar shows the percentage and Esc cancels (the box returns to the loaded area).
Clash detection
Click Clash (C). Elements that overlap an element of a different service turn red and blue (the two sides of the clash), everything else fades. Click a clashing element to see what it clashes with.
Tolerance: the Tolerance: button next to Clash sets how deep two elements must overlap to count — 5 mm by default, click for 10, 25, 50 mm or touch (touching counts too). With a tolerance, equipment resting on a floor, a panel mounted on a wall or a tray touching a beam is not reported.
Services checked against each other: cooling pipes, heating pipes, fire protection, domestic water, drainage, other pipes, supply ducts, return/exhaust ducts, other ducts, cable trays & conduits, electrical devices, mechanical equipment, structural beams and columns, architecture (walls, floors, roofs, ceilings, stairs — not checked against each other).
For detailed clash grouping and a report, use Export to web and open the file in Smart3DView Web.
Not reported: parts of the same run (a pipe and its own elbow or coupling), elements connected to each other through connectors (e.g. an air handler and its duct), and a pipe or duct with its own insulation. Elements running completely inside another (a pipe inside a duct) are reported. Only the area inside the current box is checked; editing the box re-runs the check.
Take picture
Click Take picture (P). Smart3DView renders the current view at about 4K without handles and saves it into your model as an image view: Project Browser → Renderings → “Smart3DView - date time”. You can place it on sheets like any rendering. A copy of the PNG is kept in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Smart3DView\images. When it is saved, a small window shows the picture, where it went in Revit and buttons to open the PNG or its folder.
Export to web
Open models in the browser with Smart3DView Web — no install, Revit not needed. The .glb file stays on your computer; the browser opens it locally and never uploads it.
- Whole model: the Export to web button on the Revit ribbon, next to Smart3DView. Pick the linked models to include (all are ticked) and where to save. The model is exported with Revit's own exporter (like Navisworks): the same family geometry is stored once, and linked models are cached, so a link that has not changed is not read again. Cancel or Esc stops it.
- Just this view: 🌐 Export to web in the 3D window saves what is open in that window (models hidden in the list at the top left are left out).
When the export finishes, the model opens in your browser by itself (the add-in hands the file to the page from this computer — it is never uploaded). The first time, the browser asks whether the site may access devices on your local network: click Allow.
Files are saved to Documents\Smart3DView by default. In the viewer, drag the file onto the page, or pick that folder once with My models folder.
If the browser view stutters, look at the right of its bottom bar: it shows which graphics card the browser uses. Microsoft Basic Render Driver or SwiftShader means graphics acceleration is off in the browser (turn on “Use graphics acceleration when available”; on company computers this is often locked in Edge only, so the add-in then opens the model in Chrome if it is installed). Intel UHD / Iris on a laptop with an NVIDIA / AMD card means the browser runs on the built-in chip: Windows Settings → System → Display → Graphics → the browser → High performance, then reopen the browser. Step-by-step setup
Models, Show in Revit, tags and view cube
- Hide an element: right-click it → Hide (or select it and press H); a pipe or duct is hidden together with its insulation. Right-click → Show all (Shift+H) brings everything back. Ctrl+Z (or ↶ Undo under the view cube) undoes the last hide / show all. Hidden elements are left out of clash detection and Export to web; They stay hidden after Reload.
- Models (top left): the host file and every linked model are listed with their element counts. Click a name to hide or show that whole model; hidden models are left out of clash detection.
- Show in Revit: select an element and click this button to select it and zoom to it in Revit (host model elements).
- Tag (T): hover over an element to see its category and type next to the cursor.
- View cube (top right): click a face, edge or corner to look exactly from the right, left, front, top… ⌂ 3D under it returns to the isometric view.
- Clash uses two colors: red and blue are the two sides of a clash (e.g. pipes red, ducts blue). Click a clashing element: it turns red, the elements it clashes with turn blue.
Measure
Click Measure (D), then click two points. The cursor snaps like AutoCAD object snap, and the marker shows what it holds: ✕ corner/endpoint, ○ edge midpoint, ◉ pipe/duct axis (arc centre), // on an edge, ◇ on a face; the status bar names it too. The distance is shown on the line and, with its ΔX / ΔY / ΔZ parts, in the status bar, in the project's length units.
- X / Y / Z (or the buttons) lock the second point to that project axis — e.g. Z gives the vertical distance between a pipe axis and a duct bottom. Free (or the same key again) removes the lock.
- Backspace removes the last measurement, Delete or the Delete button removes all, Esc cancels the current one / unlocks / leaves the tool. Measurements stay visible and are included in Take picture.
Reload and multiple windows
After you change the model in Revit, the Reload button turns orange. Click it (R or F5): only what changed is read again — elements added, modified or deleted in the model, and linked models that were reloaded, removed, moved or added. Unchanged linked models are not read again. Shift+R (or Shift+click) reads the whole box from scratch, e.g. after changing the view's visibility settings. The camera, the edited box, the tone, clash mode, the selected element and the elements you hid are kept. Above the button, Auto reloads by itself shortly after every change in Revit; Manual waits for you to press Reload. Every click on the Smart 3D View ribbon button opens a new window, so you can keep several areas open side by side.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Key | Action | Key | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–7 | Tone | B | Box editing |
| F | Fit | M | Move box |
| Home | Default view | C | Clash detection |
| Esc | Clear selection | P | Take picture |
| F1 | This help | R / F5 | Reload from Revit |
| T | Tag (hover info) | ||
| D | Measure | X Y Z | Axis lock (while measuring) |
Tip: in Revit you can assign your own keyboard shortcut to the Smart 3D View button (View → User Interface → Keyboard Shortcuts).
Trial & license
- First 14 days: every feature is available.
- After the trial: grayscale 3D viewing stays free. Colored and Detailed modes, Clash detection, Take picture, Box editing and Measure need a full license.
- Full license: USD 4, one-time, perpetual, usable on 2 computers — schema-tools.net/smart3dview.
Activating
- After buying, open Access purchase in the order e-mail: your key (
SMART3DVIEW-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX) is on the Polar customer page under Smart3DView-Licence, with a copy button. The e-mail itself does not show the key. - In the Smart3DView window click the Trial / Free version button at the bottom.
- Paste the key and click Activate. Activation needs internet once; afterwards Smart3DView works offline (it re-checks the key about once a week when online).
Moving to another computer
On the old computer open the license window and click Remove license from this computer, then activate on the new one. If the old computer is gone, remove its activation in the Polar customer portal.
Troubleshooting
“Could not start the 3D view … OpenGL 3.3”
The graphics driver does not provide OpenGL 3.3 (common in remote desktop / virtual machines). Update the graphics driver or run Revit locally.
“No 3D geometry found inside the box”
The selection or box contains only 2D elements (lines, rooms, annotation), or everything is hidden in the 3D view. Select model elements or enlarge the area.
Opening a large area takes a while
The time is spent reading geometry from Revit. Hover the “elements · triangles · s” text at the bottom right to see where it goes. Selecting a smaller area is the quickest fix; once open, navigation is fast.
A service has the wrong color
Coloring follows the system classification and name. Send us the system type name and we will add it.
The new version did not appear
Revit loads add-ins only at start-up — restart Revit after updating.
Requirements & privacy
Windows, Revit 2025, 2026 or 2027, a graphics card with OpenGL 3.3 (any GPU from the last decade, including integrated graphics).
Smart3DView works entirely on your computer; your model is never uploaded. The only network traffic is license activation and the weekly check with our payment provider Polar (api.polar.sh), which receives the license key and an anonymous device code — no user name, computer name or model data. See the privacy policy.
Support: schema-tools.net/contact