In my iPad app I have a view controller with a small table view. When you tap on the table view it opens a modal view controller that is a larger and more refined version of the
Perhaps you could use something like
CGAffineTransform tr = CGAffineTransformScale(lvc.view.transform, 0.5, 0.5);
to embed a scaled down version of the view in your parent view controller, then present lvc modally and restore scale when the user taps the view.