Ever wonder what it would be like to encounter a bug at eye level?

Tom Malzbender, a computer scientist for Palo Alto's Hewlett- Packard research center and a self-described "grown-up kid," has longed to enter the world of microscopic life for years, and now he has developed a device that lets him, and others, do it.. It's not a special potion you can drink to shrink, as in Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland. Instead, it's a head-mounted, three-dimensional microscope that allows you to be transported to the shrunken environs of insects.

"The experience is like all of a sudden being shrunk down to bug size and looking around the microscopic world," says Malzbender.

To make people feel like they've been cut down to size, Malzbender points a video microscope that sees in stereo at a 4- inch Plexiglas case lined with moss and filled with bugs. People peer through a pair of cameras, which creates a three- dimensional image of the tiny life.

Then viewers can roam around the tiny world at will.

Bumping Into Bugs

To control the eye of the microscope, viewers wear a gyroscopic tracker on their heads. By moving the head up, down, left or right, the tracker sends a signal to a computer that programs the microscope lens to follow. Look right and encounter a giant ladybug. Look left and bump into a furry, ferocious ant.

The whole unit takes up the space of about a medium-sized television set, says Malzbender, and was made mostly from donated parts. The most expensive component, the microscope, was donated by Leica, and the $5,000 headset was given by Kiser Electro Optics. Malzbender has demonstrated the device at technology conferences and science museums. He says he's already heard from museums and aquariums interested in acquiring models.

The basic principle of the virtual shrinking device is not new. Telepresence — the experience of immersing oneself in a remote environment — has been used in robotic deep-sea exploration. Virtual space experiments and scientists are exploring its possible application in human surgery. But the microscopic spin Malzbender features on the technology — what he calls "MicroTelepresence" — is novel.

"Basically this machine makes you feel a few millimeters tall," says Malzbender.

Cool, But Not a Tool

Although the device has a very big "cool" factor for those just interested in science, people who study insects say it doesn't necessarily offer a significant new research tool.

"I like studying insects," says Robert Page, an entomologist at the University of California at Davis. "But I don't really need to walk around with them."

Nonetheless, Malzbender would like to improve his invention. He's working to advance the head tracking device so viewers can achieve six rather than three degrees of rotation. And he'd like to find a way to make people feel even smaller — perhaps even microscopic.

At that level, even an amoeba could look intimidating.