How to Use Material Eyedropper

1 What Material Eyedropper does

Material Eyedropper is a free Revit add-in that works like the eyedropper in a graphics program — but for Revit materials. Pick any element in your model and Material Eyedropper reads back the material assigned to it, showing you the material name, the host element it came from, and its color (both hex and RGB).

From there you can edit the material, replace it, paint it onto other elements, select everything that uses it, or just inspect it — without digging through Revit's Material Browser or the Properties palette.

Material Eyedropper reads the material from the element you pick and shows its name, host, and color.

2 Installing & finding it in the ribbon

Material Eyedropper is free — no license key and no trial. To install it:

1. Download the installer from the Free Tools page (enter your name and email and we'll send the link).
2. Close Revit, run the downloaded .msi, and follow the prompts. Windows will ask you to approve the installer — Material Eyedropper installs for everyone on the machine, so it needs administrator rights. The same approval is required if you later uninstall it.
3. Re-open Revit. You'll find Material Eyedropper on the Smart Tools tab of the ribbon, in its own Material Eyedropper panel.

Material Eyedropper lives on the Smart Tools tab alongside our other add-ins. Hover the button and press F1 to open this guide.

3 Sampling a material

Using the eyedropper takes one click:

1. On the Smart Tools tab, click Material Eyedropper.
2. When prompted, click the element in your model whose material you want to sample — a wall, floor, roof, family instance, and so on.
3. The Material Eyedropper window opens and reports what it found:

• Material Name — the name of the material assigned to the element (for example, 09 29 00_Gypsum Wall Board).
• Host Element — the element the material was read from, including its type name (for example, Walls: 2_Interior 5/8" Gyp, 6" Mtl Stud, 5/8 Gyp 1 HR).
• Color — the material's graphics color shown as a swatch, with its hex value and RGB breakdown (for example, #E3EADD  (R:227 G:234 B:221)).

Once a material is loaded into the window, the action buttons along the bottom become available.

The results window after sampling a roof — the dialog follows Revit's light or dark theme.

4 What each button does

After you've sampled a material, the bottom row of the window gives you everything you can do with it:

• Edit… Opens the Edit Material Properties window — rename the material, adjust its color, transparency, shininess and smoothness, edit its description and class, and review all its parameters. The Advanced… button jumps to Revit's native Material Browser for appearance, thermal, and structural properties.
• Batch Replace Swaps the sampled material for a different one everywhere it appears in the model — painted faces, compound structure layers (walls, floors, roofs, ceilings), and type and instance material parameters — in a single operation.
• Paint Applies (paints) the sampled material onto the face of another element — the same idea as Revit's Paint tool, but pre-loaded with the material you just sampled.
• Info Calculates where the material is used and opens the Material Quantities window — element counts and areas (SF and SM) broken down by category and phase, with a phase filter, one-click name copy, and CSV export.
• Select All Selects every element that uses this material, so you can review, schedule, or modify them together.
• About Shows the version, publisher, and a link to this help guide.
• Close Closes the Material Eyedropper window.

Edit… opens the material's properties — color, transparency, shininess, smoothness, and more.

Info opens Material Quantities — counts and areas by category and phase, exportable to CSV.

5 Multi-material & painted faces

Many Revit elements carry more than one material — a wall has a structure of layers, and a family can mix several materials. A few things to keep in mind:

• Layered assemblies: Material Eyedropper reads the material from the face or element you click. If an element has several materials, click directly on the part you want so it samples the right one.
• Painted faces: If a face has been painted with a material (Revit's Paint tool), the eyedropper reports the painted material rather than the underlying structural one.
• Category materials: If an element has no material of its own and falls back to its category's material, the eyedropper reports whatever material Revit resolves for that face.

6 Troubleshooting

The button isn't on the ribbon

Check the Smart Tools tab — Material Eyedropper installs there in its own panel. If it's still missing, close Revit completely, re-run the installer, and re-open Revit. Make sure you installed the version that matches your Revit release.

"No material found" / nothing is reported

The element you clicked may not have a material assigned, or the part you clicked resolves to <By Category> with no category material set. Try clicking a different face, or assign a material to the element first.

I clicked the wrong element

Close the window and run Material Eyedropper again, then click the element you meant to sample. Nothing is changed until you use Edit, Batch Replace, or Paint.

A change wasn't what I expected

Edit, Batch Replace, and Paint use Revit's standard transaction and undo system. Press Ctrl+Z to undo the last action.

7 Getting help

Still stuck, or have a feature request? We'd love to hear from you.

• Visit the Support page.
• Email us at info@revit-smarttools.com.

You can also press F1 while hovering the Material Eyedropper button in Revit to return to this guide at any time, or click About in the app to check which version you're running.

The About window shows your installed version.