There are several tools available in the SDK which allow you to find out what is selected in the User Interface (UI). You can also change the list of currently selected items, such as selecting new items, deselecting items, inverting the selection, launching a picking session, and more (see Manipulating the Selection).
The Selection or Selection object represents what is currently selected in the UI. It is the most powerful tool for accessing and manipulating selected items, although there are a series of scripting commands that provide similar functionality.
Note that this section only addresses how to work with the selection using the Softimage Object Model and C++ API access. For more information on the basics of using scripting commands instead, see Selecting through Scripting Commands.