Local refinement with hierarchical B-spline structures is an active topic of research in the context of geometric modeling and isogeometric analysis. By exploiting a multilevel control structure, we show that truncated hierarchical B-spline (THB-spline) representations support interactive modeling tools, while simultaneously providing effective approximation schemes for the manipulation of complex data sets and the solution of partial differential equations via isogeometric analysis. A selection of illustrative 2D and 3D numerical examples demonstrates the potential of the hierarchical framework.