Three complementary views on the QCD vacuum structure, all based on eigenmodes of the overlap operator, are reported in their interrelation: (i) spectral density, localization and chiral properties of the modes, (ii) the possibility of filtering the field strength with the aim to detect selfdual and antiselfdual domains and (iii) the various faces of the topological charge density, with and without a cutoff lambda_{rm cut} = O(Lambda_{QCD}). The techniques are tested on quenched SU(3) configurations.