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,
  study_area_purpose = 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.
study_area_purpose: Optional current customer question/purpose, separate from analyst notes. NULL preserves the old binding; text or NA_character_ opts into schema 6. NA records an explicitly unspecified purpose.

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.