The Hide By Category rollout toggles the display of objects by category (geometry, cameras, lights, and so on).
By default, 3ds Max displays all objects in the scene. Objects hidden by category do not get evaluated in the scene, so hiding objects by category improves performance.
You can use the Category tab to select objects to hide by category, or use the Filter tab to select and hide sub-categories.
You can choose between having the Category and Filter lists show All categories or only Scene Contents. By default, All is selected and the lists contain all possible categories of objects to hide. When Scene Contents gets toggled on, only categories currently in the scene populate the lists.
Turn on the checkboxes to hide objects of that category. You can use the All, None, and Invert buttons to quickly change the settings of the checkboxes.