SoNodeKitPath is a subclass of SoPath that lets you look at nodekits below the top nodekit in the path. Since nodekits have hidden children, when you call getTail() on a regular path, it returns the top-most nodekit on the path. This occurs even though the path might contain extra internal information leading to a node far deeper in the scene graph. For example, when picking an object inside an SoSceneKit, the regular path would end at the scenekit. But a nodekit path would continue further down listing the other nodekits below it in the path.

Intermediary (private) nodes between nodekits are not included in the nodekit path.

Note that there is no constructor for an SoNodeKitPath, so you can not create one. Rather, you cast an (SoPath *) into an (SoNodeKitPath *), which returns nodekit-style values from all the same questions as SoPath.

Also, some methods of SoPath may not be called on an SoNodeKitPath. Any methods which take a regular SoNode as an argument (except for setHead()) are not accessible, and replaced by methods that take an SoBaseKit as an argument instead. Methods which allow the programmer to refer to the child index of a node beneath its parent are also inaccessible; since a SoNodeKitPath only shows nodekits and hides any private parts, successive nodekits in the path may not actually be parent and child.