So I looked around electronics.stackexchange for this one and here is where I landed: What type of USB Protocol for Datalogger

Basically, I would like to sample a voltage (specifically, from a photo diode through a trans-impedance amplifier) and send it to the PC. Though, I just don't want to send it to a hyper terminal, I want to graph it in my own GUI and do fun things like showing a FFT of the data. So I see two parts to this project; microcontroller and GUI.

Thing is, I am not sure where to start. The microcontrollers I have experience is with BASIC STAMP 2, PICAXE, and some Arduino. But I want to use something that would be more popular in industry. So I decided that I would perhaps go with the dsPIC series and learn it through mikroC's online book.

I was going to learn to use HID support on the dsPIC and send it to the PC (I know, easier said than done). I read info on the internet that CDC is better since it is not interrupted but I like the idea of not having to download drivers. With a quick google search, I see that other companies make HID dataloggers so it must be okay?

As for the GUI, I have basic academic experience with C++ and Java. I have used Java Swing to make some desktop GUI applications but they were fairly simple compared to what I want to do here. I am also not sure how to "read" the USB port for data to use as inputs for my GUI. I was thinking that I was going to use (well, once I learn it) C# since I read somewhere that it is fairly easy to grab data from a USB port for a program and show in a GUI. I was going to start with the GUI part and attempt to use dummy data like a mouse to make sure it works, maybe even use an actual datalogger for testing. Then muddle with the dsPIC part.

So I guess my bottom line question is am I approaching this the right way? Is what I proposing even possible?

So I looked around electronics.stackexchange for this one and here is where I landed: What type of USB Protocol for Datalogger

Basically, I would like to sample a voltage (specifically, from a photo diode through a trans-impedance amplifier) and send it to the PC. Though, I just don't want to send it to a hyper terminal, I want to graph it in my own GUI and do fun things like showing a FFT of the data. So I see two parts to this project; microcontroller and GUI.

Thing is, I am not sure where to start. The microcontrollers I have experience is with BASIC STAMP 2, PICAXE, and some Arduino. But I want to use something that would be more popular in industry. So I decided that I would perhaps go with the dsPIC series and learn it through mikroC's online book.

I was going to learn to use HID support on the dsPIC and send it to the PC (I know, easier said than done). I read info on the internet that CDC is better since it is not interrupted but I like the idea of not having to download drivers. With a quick google search, I see that other companies make HID dataloggers so it must be okay?

As for the GUI, I have basic academic experience with C++ and Java. I have used Java Swing to make some desktop GUI applications but they were fairly simple compared to what I want to do here. I am also not sure how to "read" the USB port for data to use as inputs for my GUI. I was thinking that I was going to use (well, once I learn it) C# since I read somewhere that it is fairly easy to grab data from a USB port for a program and show in a GUI. I was going to start with the GUI part and attempt to use dummy data like a mouse to make sure it works, maybe even use an actual datalogger for testing. Then muddle with the dsPIC part.

So I guess my bottom line question is am I approaching this the right way? Is what I proposing even possible?