Delete IFC, RVT, NWD Elements

Pick entire categories of elements (doors, windows, rebar…) or specific items and remove them from the model.

Besides IFC, this tool takes Revit (.rvt) and Navisworks (.nwd) files, with no Revit or Navisworks licence. Drop one in and it is converted to IFC first, then the tool runs on that IFC; your original file is not changed.

Delete whole categories of elements from an IFC model, or specific items you pick. Upload the model, choose what goes — every IfcReinforcingBar, all the furniture, the annotation, a handful of elements selected in the 3D view — and download the model without them.

The reason to remove elements is almost never that they're wrong. It's that they don't belong in THIS hand-off. Rebar quadruples a structural model's size and means nothing to the architect. Furniture and specialist equipment carry the manufacturer detail nobody downstream needs and every viewer has to render. A coordination model with the annotation stripped out loads in a fraction of the time and clashes exactly the same.

When to reach for it: When you want to strip specific kinds of elements from the model — say, rebar from a model you're sending to an architect, or annotations you don't care about.

What you get: The same model minus the elements you picked. File size goes down, nothing else changes.

Example: Remove every reinforcing bar from a structural model before sharing it with an architect.

Pick by class, by search, or by hand

The tool reads the model first and shows the IFC classes it actually contains, with counts, so you're ticking real groups rather than guessing at names. Tick IfcReinforcingBar and every rebar goes; tick IfcFurnishingElement and the furniture goes with it.

For anything more specific than a class, point the removal at a saved search — a rule like "everything on level 3" or "every element whose name starts with TEMP" that stays correct as the model changes — or select the elements directly in the 3D viewer and remove exactly those. That last one is the fastest route when the problem is six specific objects rather than a category.

What removal actually gains you

Rebar — often the single biggest win on a structural model. Reinforcement geometry is dense, repetitive, and irrelevant to everyone except the person detailing it.
Furniture, fittings and specialist equipment — heavy imported components with detail that no coordination workflow uses.
Annotation, grids and 2D helper geometry — invisible in most 3D workflows, and surprisingly large. Clean IFC Drawing Layers handles the sub-element case where you want the element but not its 2D representations.
Spaces and zones — meaningful to the architect, noise to the fabricator.
Anything under NDA or commercially sensitive that shouldn't be in an outgoing model at all.

It's destructive — which is why the original stays

Deleted elements are gone from the output file, not hidden in it. The run writes a new file and leaves your upload untouched, and in a workspace the source model remains as its own version, so you can always go back to it. Keep that original: the removal cannot be undone from the output alone.

If you want to remove whole categories AND everything non-physical in one move, Keep Only Physical IFC Elements is the blunter version — it keeps construction and drops spaces, zones, annotation, grids and proxies in a single pass. If what you're really after is a smaller file rather than a shorter element list, Reduce IFC File Size strips geometry nothing displays without removing any elements at all.

Using it on Revit and Navisworks files

When you open a .rvt or a .nwd file here, BIMCamel converts it to IFC on the server and brings you back to this tool with the converted model loaded. Element ids, levels and properties come across under their Revit and Navisworks names, so pick properties as they appear in your model. Your .rvt or .nwd itself is never edited: a tool that changes the model gives you an IFC back.

Revit files can be up to 25 MB without an account, 100 MB with a free one and 200 MB on a paid plan. Navisworks files can be up to 25 MB without an account, 100 MB with a free one and 200 MB on a paid plan, and they open in the browser viewer at the same sizes. Revit projects saved in Revit 2021 to 2027 are supported.

How to delete elements from an IFC file

Upload your model (IFC, RVT or NWD)
Pick the element categories you want gone (walls, doors, rebar, grids, …)
Or pick individual elements by selecting them in the 3D viewer first
Click Run — leftover shapes and helper data are cleaned up automatically
Download the cleaned file

Under the hood

BIMCamel parses IFC files in the browser using the open-source web-ifc engine and renders models with @thatopen/components + three.js. Heavy operations (clean / optimise / validate / convert) run on disposable server-side workers using the same web-ifc stack plus our own .NET pipeline; results stream back to your browser as soon as they're ready. Uploads sit on our servers only as long as your tier's retention window allows and are never used to train AI.

Frequently asked questions

How do I remove rebar from an IFC model?

Upload the model, tick IfcReinforcingBar in the class list (the tool reads the model and shows the classes it actually contains, with counts), and run. On a structural model this is usually the single largest size reduction available.

Can I delete specific elements rather than a whole class?

Yes — select them in the 3D viewer and remove exactly those, or point the removal at a saved search so the rule keeps applying as the model changes. Class selection is for categories; the other two are for everything else.

Does this reduce file size?

Substantially, when the elements you remove carry heavy geometry — rebar, furniture and imported equipment especially. If your goal is purely a smaller file, Reduce IFC File Size strips geometry nothing displays while keeping every element.

Can I get the deleted elements back?

Not from the output — deletion is real. But the run writes a new file and leaves your upload alone, and in a workspace the source model stays available as its own version, so you can always start again from it.

What's the difference from Keep Only Physical IFC Elements?

This tool removes what you name. That one keeps what is physically built — walls, floors, columns, rebar, MEP — and drops everything else (spaces, zones, annotation, grids, proxies) in one pass. Use it when the goal is "just the construction".

Which IFC versions are supported?

IFC2x3 and IFC4 — the two schema versions exported by essentially every AEC authoring application. IFC4x3, the infrastructure schema, works too: it opens in the viewer, and validation, health reports, property-set editing and georeferencing all run on it. Tools that need geometry processing, such as clash detection and 3D export, aren't verified on IFC4x3 yet.

What's the maximum IFC file size?

Up to 25 MB as a guest, 100 MB with a free account, 500 MB on Pro, and 1 GB on Team. The caps are on upload size only — every tool itself is available on every tier.

What happens to my file after processing?

Your file is uploaded over HTTPS and processed on our servers. Guest uploads are stream-only — the working files are deleted as soon as your download finishes. Free accounts keep results for 7 days; Pro and Team keep saved models until you delete them. Files are never shared with third parties or used to train AI.

Is Delete IFC Elements free?

Yes. Delete IFC Elements is free to use — guests get 3 runs a day with 25 MB uploads, and a free account raises that to 10 runs a day with 100 MB uploads. No trial clock, no watermarks.

Can I use a Revit or Navisworks file with Delete IFC, RVT, NWD Elements?

Yes. Open a .rvt or .nwd file and it is converted to IFC first; the tool then runs on that IFC and your original file is not changed.