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Managing Documents

A document is a Revit model — or a portion of one — that Blendersync for Revit has sent to Blender. Each document arrives with a name and a unique ID, and gets its own collection in the Blender scene. A single file can receive multiple documents, for example different disciplines or model phases from the same project.

Documents appear in the Links panel as soon as the first update arrives from Blendersync for Revit.

Screenshot needed: Links panel with pending document showing authorization row

Authorization

Before any document can change your scene, you need to authorize it. This gives you control over exactly when and how updates come in.

When a document first appears, it is in a Pending state. The authorization row shows four actions:

Action Effect When available
Authorize Allow incoming sync updates to apply Always, unless already Authorized
Pause Hold incoming updates without rejecting the document Always, unless already Paused
Deny Stop updates; existing scene content stays until purged Always, unless already Denied
Purge Remove the document and its data from the scene Always once the document exists

Buttons for the current state are greyed out. For example, if a document is already Authorized, the Authorize button is disabled — you can only Pause, Deny, or Purge from that state.

Pending means no decision has been made yet — the document has arrived but you haven't acted on it. Paused is a deliberate hold: you've chosen to delay updates temporarily. The distinction matters if you're troubleshooting why a scene isn't updating.

A Paused document queues incoming updates. They will not apply until you Authorize the document.

A Denied document retains its existing scene content. Nothing is removed automatically — use Purge when you are ready to remove it.

The basepoint

Every document has a basepoint — an Empty object (shown with arrows) that represents the Revit Survey Base Point. All objects in the document are parented to it.

The basepoint is created at the origin (0, 0, 0) when the document first arrives, and updated with the actual survey coordinates from Revit as they come in. Moving the basepoint moves the entire synced project. This is the primary way to reposition a linked model in your scene.

Use Select Basepoint in the Links panel to select it immediately.

Document actions

With a document selected in the Links panel, the following actions are available:

Navigation & selection

  • Select Basepoint — selects the document's basepoint Empty
  • Select All — selects all objects belonging to the document
  • Activate Camera — makes the document's synced camera the one Blender renders from
  • Select Camera — selects the camera object
  • Select Sun — selects the sun object

Visibility

  • Toggle Viewport — shows or hides the document in the viewport
  • Toggle Render — includes or excludes the document from renders

Sun

  • Toggle Sun — activates the sun for this document. Requires Blender's Sun Position add-on to be enabled and a sun to have been synced. If either condition is not met, a warning is shown and the toggle does nothing.

Presets

  • Save Preset — saves all overrides for this document to a .bsync file
  • Load Preset — loads a previously saved .bsync file

Cleanup

  • Purge Unused — removes unused datablocks from the scene

Screenshot needed: Links panel with authorized document showing all action rows

Freeze

The Freeze tools act on the objects currently selected in the viewport, not on the whole document. This lets you lock individual objects against incoming sync updates.

  • Freeze Selected — prevents selected synced objects from receiving updates
  • Unfreeze Selected — restores update behavior for selected objects
  • Select Frozen — selects all currently frozen objects in the document

Global override

Below the freeze tools, the Links panel exposes the Global Override section for the selected document. The global override lets you apply a single appearance — color, material, or UV settings — across every material in the document at once. It's useful for quick visualization modes like a white-model view or a site-analysis tint. It includes:

  • Global override material picker
  • Global UV preview toggle
  • Global UV override section
  • Viewport and Render Appearance for the global override material

The global override material and its appearance settings work exactly like per-material overrides — the same Viewport Appearance, Render Appearance, and UV controls are available, but applied document-wide. Individual materials can opt out using their Ignore Global Override toggle (see Material overrides).