[FEATURE]: Support Curved-Boundary Bar Charts with Dynamic Phase/Threshold Detection

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
28/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
python
Domain
data-visualization

Research direction

Start with the linked live demo and repository, then review plotly.py's existing shapes and annotations support described in the issue. No specific file or test is identified; define the API scope and acceptance criteria for curved boundaries, collision detection, and dynamic bar styling before implementation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement feature P3 size: 5
What problem does this feature solve?

In physical domain modeling (such as thermodynamic P-T phase diagrams), industrial monitoring, and multi-parameter threshold analysis, data visualization often requires representing dynamic bar elements within a two-dimensional parameter space that interact with non-linear, curved decision boundaries.

Current Limitations:
  1. Linear/Static Boundaries: Current shapes/shapes annotations in Plotly primarily target horizontal, vertical, or simple linear lines. Defining polynomial or spline-based curved boundary lines for dynamic spatial partitioning is not natively streamlined.
  2. Complex Collision Logic: Calculating real-time intersections (collision detection) between moving/resizing bar vertices (e.g., X position = Pressure, Y height = Temperature) and curved thresholds to dynamically update bar styling (e.g., solid, liquid, gas, or custom status) is mathematically complex to implement manually on top of standard trace types.
Expected Experience:

We hope Plotly could consider providing native support or built-in mechanisms for curved decision boundaries. When a bar's position along the X-axis or height along the Y-axis changes, the chart can evaluate its top vertex against curved boundaries to trigger real-time state changes and dynamic styling.

🔗 Live Demo & Repository
Dominant language
Python
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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