New to all this. Automation project: camera as input, motors as output. Using a windows PC is a requirement. I'm generating a CSV file from the camera (camera python api). Parsing the csv file, I'll move a motor until I reach a minimum value. So far so good.
I have a USB relay controller (http://www.canakit.com/Media/Manuals/UK1104.pdf) to which I want to output a signal from the PC based on the csv. Prefer to use java due to gui reqs. How do I get the csv file to output to a generated virtual serial com port over Java? The tutorial suggests using a terminal emulation program such as PuTTY, hyperterminal, realterm, absolute terminal, etc (all work for manual input), which i've never used (except putty for ssh). Do any of these have a java api? How would all this work? Should I use another language? I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks.
Java has libraries that let you access serial ports on your computer. One such library is rxtx, and there are probably others. You can use such a library to open the serial port and then send or receive bytes from it.
Terminal programs are intended for interactive use by a human; they not generally meant to be used by another computer program.