One selection action that is only available from the Modify menu is the Select Visible command. This command will select all triangles visible in the current viewpoint. This is particularly useful for quickly selecting the "outside" shell of a complex 3D scan, which may have interior cavities that are connected to the exterior.
To be able to see the Modify menu you must make an initial selection. Then Select Visible will add all visible faces. As with the screen-space lasso, each time you run this command it will replace the current selection, however by holding the Shift modifier you can append, or hold Ctrl/Cmd modifier will subtract.