For as long as armies have waged war, the generals and strategists have leaned over models of artificial landscape to plot their battles and ponder the terrain. But now, if a Glen Burnie technology firm succeeds, they will no longer have their heads in the sand.

Xenotran LLC, a small high-technology firm that "graduated" last year from the University of Maryland's small business incubator program, has invented a computer-driven mapping device that depicts landscapes in three dimensions.

Designed to replace the military "sand tables" of old, the device acts like a rubber, table-top computer screen that contorts to mimic mountains, valleys or other features. Where military planners once built their model battlefields out of plastic foam or sand, with Xenotran's "Dynamic Sand Table" they can simply feed in satellite photographs, topographical survey data or other information, and a model of the terrain will form in three minutes or less.

"These guys literally play in the sand when they plan battles," said Derrick J. Page, president and founder of Xenotran. "Well, you can understand that they needed some higher-tech than that."

The Army's Engineer Research and Development Center recently awarded Xenotran a $780,000 contract to develop its Dynamic Sand Table and prepare it for production. The contract was the second award for the device - and the strongest government commitment yet to pursuing the technology.

Xenotran began developing what it calls the Dynamic Matrix Display with an initial contract of roughly $100,000. While some three-dimensional computer displays using holograms or visual effects have been made by other companies, Page had to start from scratch in designing one that could mold to form different physical shapes, then reconfigure itself into a new shape on demand.

Drawing on experience with flat-screen computer displays, Page designed a 2-foot-by-2-foot display that relies on 2,500 movable rods the way a typical computer screen uses pixels. Each rod is moved to a certain height based on elevation data fed into the computer, and the entire screen is covered in white latex and kept taut by an internal vacuum system.

A picture of the terrain is projected onto the latex from above, and can be augmented with additional colors, pictures or information just as on a computer screen.

Page and his employees assembled and manufactured the prototype themselves, using a few specially imported or tooled components but mostly with parts from Home Depot. Work began in January, and Xenotran conducted its first working test in May.

"If you're in a big company, it takes that length of time just to persuade management that you should be doing it," Page said.

And he would know. An electrical engineer with a doctorate from the University of Birmingham in England, Page, 65, spent much of his career as a researcher for Westinghouse Electric Corp. He formed Xenotran in 1995 hoping to import foreign technology to the United States - "xeno" is Greek for "foreign" - but the six-employee firm has largely developed its own ideas. Among the employees are Page's son, Kevin, who also has a doctorate in electrical engineering.

The company designed a computer chip for "smart cards" used on municipal subway systems, and is developing a technology for spotting and correcting errors in satellite communications.

As were several of Xenotran's projects, the sand table was spawned by the government's Small Business Innovation Research program, which spreads government research money to small companies. The Army knew it wanted a modern version of the old sand table, and asked the nation's small technology companies for ideas.

"Sand tables, or physical terrain models, are a key element in planning, rehearsing and reviewing military operations," the Army wrote in its original solicitation for the new technology. But sand tables have two distinct disadvantages, the Army said. "They are time-consuming to construct and manufacture, and they become a storage problem when multiple tables are acquired."

The next phase of developing Xenotran's new display calls for refining the concepts used in the prototype and constructing a second, 4-foot-by-8-foot prototype that can reconfigure its shape in one minute or less. The Army's goal is a system that costs less than $50,000 each.

Xenotran is also thinking beyond the device's military uses, and considering ways to market it for scientific use or commercial applications.

"You want to play your favorite golf course? Let's look at it in advance," said Page. "You're going skiing? We can do that, too. You can imagine all the possibilities."