Raycast on a defined curve

This is sort of an abstract question here, but how would I write a function such that it’s inputs are:

  1. A math function such as y=4.5x^2 + 2.3x + 2 (Where x and y are in in game units)
  2. A domain for the function’s x value such as [4, 11] (Again, in in-game units)

And it outputs whether or not the function over the given domain collides with any 2D colliders?

Well instead of a raycast. You can just create an invisible object with a collider. Then move game object accordingly. It might look something like the following. NOTE THE SECOND FUNCTION:

using System.Data;
[...]

// Variables
bool hit;
float stepSize = 0.01f;

/*
* Main Function that moves obj
*/
bool CheckHit (string funcString, leftBoundry, rightBoundry) {
  // Set bool hit to false/Reset
  hit = false;

  // For Loop
  for (float x = leftBoundry; x <= rightBoundry; x += stepSize) {
     // Calculate y position
     float y = CalculateString(funcString, x);

     // Move the object
    transform.position = Vector2 (x, y);
  }
 // Return the hit variable
  return hit;
 }

/**
* Takes String and Returns a double
*/
float CalculateString(string func, float x) {
            // Final string
            string final = "";
            
            // Holder for all the words
            string[] words = func.Split(' ');
            
            // Foreach statement to replace x
            foreach (string word in words)
            {
                string temp;
                if (word.Length > 1) {
                 temp = word.Replace("x"," * " + x.ToString());
                } else {
                    temp = word.Replace("x", x.ToString());
                }
                
                final = final + " " + temp;
                
            }
            
            // Replace commas with full stops for the calculation function
            final = final.Replace(",", ".");
            
            // Calculate and return the string
            float result = (float) Convert.ToDouble(new DataTable().Compute(final, null));
            return result;
 }

/*
* On Collision for when it hits an object
* Possibly change to OnTriggerEnter
*/ 

void OnCollisionEnter (Collision other) {
   hit = true;
}

Small disclaimer. I have not tested this in Unity. I have however tested this in C# and the function works. Just ensure you use operators Seperately from numbers and other functions (Except for muliplicaiton). example:

string func = "14x / x + 5x"; // CORRECT
string func = "14x/x+x"; // WRONG

A simple solution would be to get function points more or less regularly spaced and check the line segment between each two consecutive points with Linecast. You would not need a lot of points, since the colliders usually aren’t too small - maybe a distance about 0.2 units between points could do the job.

Another possibly faster solution could be to check whether any of these points hit a collider with Physics2D.OverlapPoint - you could even add some “thickness” to the curve by using OverlapCircle instead.