Origami tessellation offers a promising substrate for shape-changing interfaces, yet prototyping such structures remains labor-intensive: users often need to assemble modular parts or rebuild structures to explore alternative forms and motions. This limits rapid iteration, especially when motion behavior needs to be revised after fabrication. We present MetaCanvas, a prototyping toolkit that supports the design of tessellation-based shape-changing structures through a reusable active canvas and a cut-and-configure workflow. The toolkit combines a pre-fabricated tessellation substrate with embedded actuation, a digital interface for specifying cut patterns and motion regions, and a tangible controller for adjusting actuation parameters without re-fabrication. This workflow enables users to customize shape and iteratively tune motion on the same canvas. We evaluate MetaCanvas through technical characterization, five demonstration artifacts, and a design study with 12 participants. The results show that MetaCanvas supports rapid customization of tessellation structures, localized motion design, and post-fabrication exploration of shape-changing behaviors. Based on these findings, we discuss how reusable and reconfigurable substrates can broaden the design space of shape-changing interface prototyping.

Authors: Lina Zhang, Zhian Hu, Jianhui Yan, Yibin Huai, Ziqi Fang, and Kening Zhu (*).