Revit Tutorial: Using Show Remove Hidden Lines Tool for Displaying Concealed Element

In this comprehensive walkthrough, we'll explore the Show/Remove Hidden Lines tool—a powerful visualization feature that solves a common drafting challenge. When filled regions or masking elements conceal important structural details beneath, you often need those hidden elements to remain visible as dashed reference lines. The Show Hidden Lines tool transforms this potential limitation into a precise documentation advantage.

Let's begin by navigating to our Enlarged Elevation Southwest Window view, where we'll demonstrate this technique in a practical scenario. Start by drawing a masking region with the edge style configured to Wide lines. Our objective here is strategic: we'll create a rectangle positioned so the top edge of the masking region aligns precisely with the top of the first-floor slab, establishing a clear visual boundary.

Next, draw the rectangle with generous dimensions—extend it well beyond the crop region boundaries to ensure complete coverage of the target area. This masking region will effectively hide everything below the floor line, including both the floor slab and topography fill patterns that might otherwise clutter the elevation view. Complete this step by clicking the green checkmark to finalize the masking region.

Now we'll activate the core functionality that makes this workflow so valuable. Navigate to the View tab, locate the Graphics panel, and select Show Hidden Lines. This process requires two deliberate selections that work in tandem. First, you'll identify the element creating the obstruction—in our case, the masking region we just created. This tells the software what's doing the "hiding."

The second selection defines which elements should remain visible despite being masked. Click on the floor slab to designate it as the element that should appear as a dashed line through the masking region. This creates an intelligent relationship between the visible dashed line and the actual structural element—a crucial distinction that sets this approach apart from simple drafting overlays.

Here's where the tool's sophistication becomes apparent: the dashed line you see directly correlates to the actual thickness and position of the structural pad that defines the first-floor slab in your model. This parametric relationship means that if you modify the slab's thickness—changing it from the current six inches to any other dimension—the dashed line automatically adjusts to reflect the new geometry. This dynamic behavior makes the tool significantly more robust than manual drafting methods, ensuring your documentation stays accurate as design iterations evolve.

For the sake of maintaining our current setup, let's undo that thickness change and restore the slab to its original six-inch specification. It's worth noting that this entire process is completely reversible—should you need to eliminate these hidden line displays, simply employ the companion Remove Hidden Lines tool to restore the standard view behavior. This flexibility allows you to experiment with different visualization strategies without permanent consequences to your project documentation.

With a solid understanding of hidden line management now established, our next video will shift focus to another essential visualization tool: Cut Profile, which offers complementary techniques for managing complex section representations.