View Filter for Outlines

I'm not sure if the title is clear, but I'd like to combine views with the hierarchical data that is available in the outlines.

For instance, let's say I have a few volumes which contain a bunch of nodes. Now I'd like to create a view that only contains the nodes belonging to a certain (selectable) volume.
If we take this a bit further and more generic, we could even envision some sort of drill down, where you select a node and it only shows the child nodes.

I know that you can just select the ouline view and have something similar. However, the point is that you can use the powerful view builder (I'm using cck fields) and have hierarchy, both at the same time.

I'm not sure if this is technically possible (I guess so), and I certainly have no idea if this would be difficult. I'd be willing to put a little time and effort into developing this. So if there are any pointers on where to look (I'm pretty new to Drupal dev) ... I'm listening :)