BIMIO Lens

Goal. Have Lens docked and see the complete record card of any element in one click.

1. Click the Lens button on the BIMIO tab, QA / QC panel.The dockable panel appears on the right-hand side of Revit. You can drag it, stack it with Properties or leave it floating.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-03.pngThe Revit ribbon with the BIMIO tab open and the cursor over the Lens button in the QA / QC panel.

2. Select an element, a view or a sheet in the model.The panel refreshes itself with every selection: there is no refresh button. If you select nothing, Lens inspects the active view.
3. Check the header and expand General Info to see identity and authorship.Category, Family, Type, Name and Instance Id (selectable, copy with Ctrl+C), plus the line C: (creator), LC: (last changed by) and O: (current owner of the element in worksharing).

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-04.pngThe General Info block expanded showing category, family, type, id and the C / LC / O authorship line.

4. Open the Overview, Visibility and Parameters sections as needed.Overview summarises what it is and where it is; Visibility lists in which views it is hidden or manipulated; Parameters shows every parameter with its origin labels.

• If you select several elements at once, Lens shows an aggregated summary with counts by category, type, workset and last editor.
• The expanded or collapsed state of the main blocks (General Info, Live activity, History and Deleted Elements) is saved and restored in the next session.

Goal. See every parameter of the element, including the ones Revit does not show, and understand where each one comes from.

1. Select the element and expand the Parameters section.Parameters are grouped first into instance and type blocks (type ones are titled Type · Group) and within those by Revit parameter group, each with its counter.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-05.pngThe Parameters section with the collapsible groups and each group's parameter counter.

2. Type in the Filter parameters box to find a parameter by name or value.Filtering is instant and acts on the parameters already loaded; groups with no matches are hidden.
3. Read the pills on each row to learn the parameter's scope and origin.INS instance, TYP type, BLT Revit built-in, PRJ project parameter, FAM family parameter, SHD shared and RO read-only.
4. Switch the scope to Type in the header if you want to inspect the type rather than the instance.The inspector and the history switch to describing the selected element's type (its type parameters and its changes). Switch back to Element to return to the instance.

• Empty parameters are hidden by default to reduce noise; the important ones (Mark, Comments and the like) are always shown even when empty.
• Lens does not edit values: to modify a parameter, use Revit's Properties palette.

Goal. Create the project baseline and start accumulating change history at every synchronisation.

1. Open a workshared model (saved as a central model or as a local copy of one).Models without worksets do not generate history in this version: the panel will work as an inspector, but History will remain empty.
2. Check that the Record pill in the History header is switched on (it shows a tick).It is on by default. It is the master switch for recording changes at synchronisations.
3. Synchronise with the central model as you normally would.At a project's first synchronisation, Lens builds the baseline: it scans the tracked elements and stores their state. In large models this can take 30 to 60 seconds.
4. Keep working and synchronising; check History after each synchronisation.From the second synchronisation onwards, each one adds Created, Modified and Deleted rows by comparing against the baseline. The panel's history refreshes itself when each synchronisation finishes.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-06.pngThe History section with today's synchronisation group expanded showing change rows with user and time.

• During heavy restructuring, switch Record off: intermediate synchronisations will not be recorded and, when you switch it back on, the next synchronisation will capture the clean net delta against the old baseline.
• Noisy categories (sketch lines, cameras) and the Edited by parameter are excluded by default to keep the history readable.

Goal. Answer questions such as who changed what, when and on which element, using the search box and the filters.

1. Expand History and choose the scope in the header: Project for the whole project, Element for the selected element (or the active view).In project scope, 50 rows are loaded per page; in Element and Type, 20. The history is grouped by synchronisation, with today's groups expanded.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-07.pngThe History expander open with the search bar, the Filters expander and several synchronisation groups.

2. Type in the search box to filter instantly.It accepts free text and key:value tokens: user:javier, category:Walls (or cat:), family:Modular, type:RKD, param:Mark, id:123456, action:Created|Modified|Deleted|Baseline and date:today, date:yesterday, date:2026-06-15, date:2026-06 or date:2026. The search is applied after a typing pause of roughly 150 ms.
3. Open the Filters expander to narrow down with Excel-style checkboxes.Three drop-downs (User, Category, Action) with the row count for each option; untick options to exclude them. The counters in the other columns are recalculated based on what you leave ticked. Add a date range with the From and To pickers.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-08.pngThe Filters expander with the User, Category and Action drop-downs and the date range.

4. Use the Deleted only, Restore all and Clear all shortcuts as needed.Deleted only leaves only the Deleted action ticked (a one-click deletion audit); Restore all ticks everything again; Clear all unticks everything.
5. Tick Show auto-propagated if you also want to see Revit's automatic recalculations.By default, rows where Revit recalculated a parameter (room area, pipe length) as a side effect of editing another element are hidden.
6. Expand grouped operations and navigate from the rows.Show N elements rows expand into the individual elements (with their own pagination). A row's Show button frames and selects the live element; Zoom, on a deleted element's row, takes the view to where it used to be without creating a ghost. Click Show more at the bottom to load the next page.

• In Element scope, if the target has no recorded rows yet you will see the message No data for this element: the history only starts to exist from the baseline and subsequent synchronisations.
• If the Live activity watcher is switched on, some synchronisation headers may show the possible auto note: the attributed author did not appear to be active at the time and the changes could be auto-propagations.

Goal. Find out what has been deleted from the model, who did it, and visualise the exact location with a temporary ghost.

1. Expand the Deleted Elements section.The first time you open it, the recorded deletions are loaded, grouped by synchronisation and paginated in batches of 20. If it is empty, remember that deletions are recorded when you synchronise.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-09.pngThe Deleted Elements section with rows of deleted elements: what each one was, who deleted it and when.

2. Filter with the Search deletions box if you are looking for something specific.Search by id, category, family, user or notes (the room, level or host where the element used to be).
3. Click Recreate on the row you are interested in.The active view zooms to the element's last known position and a red ghost appears (a box filling its volume) with an identifying comment: category, family, type, id, who deleted it and when. For walls and linear elements the ghost is oriented along their axis; for lines the curve itself is recreated.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-10.pngA Revit view with a semi-transparent red ghost marking the gap left by a deleted wall, and the active markers notice in the panel.

4. Repeat with as many rows as you need; the panel notice keeps count of the active ghosts.Once a row has a ghost, its button changes from Recreate to Show and only navigates to it.
5. When you have finished, click Finish inspection to remove all the ghosts.If you forget, no harm done: ghosts are cleaned up automatically before every synchronisation and when the document is closed, so they never reach the central model.
6. Only if you want to share the ghosts with the team, tick Keep markers on next Sync before synchronising.It is a one-off authorisation: the next synchronisation will send them to the central model and the checkbox unticks itself so they do not stay shared for ever.

• The Deleted only shortcut in History's Filters expander is another quick route for auditing deletions with all the filters available.
• Bulk deletions are shown element by element in this section, even though in History they appear grouped into a single operation.

Goal. See where an element was before someone moved or resized it.

1. In History, find the row for the geometric change (moved or resized).Use the search box or the filters to track it down; only rows that stored the previous geometry offer this action.
2. Click Recreate on the row.Lens draws an orange ghost with the element's box at its previous position, zooms to it, and the button changes to Show. The ghost carries a comment with the element's identity and the previous-position note.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-11.pngA view with the element in its current position and an orange ghost marking where it was before the change.

3. Compare positions and, when you are done, click Finish inspection in History's orange notice.That button clears only the orange ghosts; the red ones for deleted elements have their own notice in Deleted Elements. Like the red ones, they clean themselves up before synchronising and on closing.

• The Keep markers on next Sync checkbox also works with the orange ghosts if you need the team to see them once.

Goal. Know what the other users of the central model are editing right now without waiting for the next synchronisation.

1. Expand Live activity and click the Track pill.The watcher starts polling the central model (every 30 seconds by default) and the pill shows a tick. The state is remembered between sessions.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-12.pngThe Live activity expander with the Track pill switched on, active user chips and several event rows.

2. Watch the active user chips and the event feed.Each row shows the time, the user with their colour, the verb (editing, released, took over, changed, synced) and the affected element. For multi-element events, expand Show N elements to see them one by one; the copy button puts the id on the clipboard.
3. Adjust the behaviour with the cog in the header.The popover offers: Hide me from the feed (hide your own activity, on by default), Pulse interval (polling interval, 10 to 120 seconds in steps of 5), Keep users active for (minutes a user keeps counting as active, 5 to 240) and Scan whole model (scan the whole model instead of just the active view). Changes are saved automatically.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-13.pngThe Live activity settings popover with the polling interval and the active-users window.

4. Click Show more at the bottom of the feed to reveal earlier events.The feed shows the 10 most recent events and keeps up to 200 in memory. If you scroll down to read older events, new ones wait and are inserted when you return to the top.

• Polling consumes network resources: on huge models you can raise the interval or switch off Scan whole model.
• With Track switched on, the history cross-references data with the feed and flags as possible auto the changes whose author was not recorded as active.

Goal. Find in one sweep every element that someone hid, or whose appearance was manipulated with overrides, in views on sheets.

1. Select any element in the model and locate the panel's Visibility section.The scan button lives in the header of the Visibility section, which appears when inspecting an element. With nothing selected, Lens inspects the active view and does not show this section.
2. Click the Scan all tricks button in the section header.The scan sweeps the model looking for hidden elements or overrides in views placed on sheets, up to a cap of 5000 results. While it runs you will see the status Scanning all views for tricks.
3. Review the results grouped by view.They appear in their own section, Visibility · all elements: each group is a view and each row an element with its trick type (hidden, with an override, or both). The results persist even if you change the selection, until the next scan.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-14.pngThe Visibility · all elements section with the scan results grouped by view and rows of hidden or overridden elements.

4. Click Show on a row to activate the view where it happens.Revit opens that view so you can check and correct the visibility with the native tools.

• For a single element there is no need to scan: select it and the Visibility section already checks its views (up to 400 views and 80 findings per selection, prioritising the active view and views on sheets), including switched-off categories and view filters.
• The global scan covers hides and overrides in views on sheets; tricks caused by filters or categories are only detected in the per-selection check.

Goal. Generate a self-contained report to share the project's status or an element's record card with someone who does not have Revit.

1. Decide the report type with the scope in the header.In Project (or with nothing selected) the project dashboard is exported; in Element or Type, the dedicated report for the selected element or type.
2. Click Export HTML in the panel header.Lens gathers the history, the baseline inventory, the recorded live activity and, if there is one, the latest tricks scan, and builds a single HTML file with no external dependencies (it works offline).
3. In the confirmation dialog, click Open file to open it in the browser, or open the folder.The file is saved in Documents, in the BIMIO Lens Reports folder, with a name that includes the model, the element (if applicable) and the date.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-15.pngThe export-complete dialog with the file name, the destination folder and the buttons to open the file or the folder.

4. Browse the report in your browser.The project report includes Overview (figures and a timeline of changes), People (who changed what, a heat map by hour and day, live activity), Elements (hot categories and deletions), Inventory (every recorded row with search, sorting and filters), Revit's project information and the scanned tricks. The element report shows its activity over time and the full inspector snapshot. There is a light/dark theme toggle and a global search.

   

   assets/shots/lens/fig-16.pngThe project HTML report open in the browser with the activity charts and the filterable inventory.

• Run Scan all tricks before exporting the project report if you want it to include the visibility tricks table.
• The Export HTML button is disabled if the panel has no sections to export (for example, with no document open).