Start a new Study Area draft without acquired data — start_study

Creates a named Study Area and optional purpose/scope notes in the existing saved-context binding. This is for a genuinely new study, not recovering an existing identity from an archive. No boundary, CRS, Stream, Reach, Survey Event, terrain reference or acceptance is inferred. A new local UUID is generated once and retained by subsequent context revisions.

start_study_context(
  output_file,
  study_area_name,
  analyst_notes = NA_character_,
  report_file = NULL
)

Arguments

output_file: New .gpkg path in an existing directory.
study_area_name: Nonempty working Study Area name.
analyst_notes: Optional nonempty purpose/scope text, or NA_character_. Stored as the existing analyst_notes field, not structured requirements, an acquisition record or an approval signature. Outer whitespace is trimmed.
report_file: Optional new .html path in an existing directory. Renders define_study_area_report() from the reopened saved context.

Value

List of context and report paths (report NULL if not requested). Existing destinations are refused. Outputs are not one transaction: a rendering failure or cancellation after saving can leave the context. Keep it and retry reporting without creating another study identity.