I don't know which software to use

[Altera_Forum]

I am supposed to get information from the altera DE2 (cyclone2) board ( temperature) , and show the temperature in visual studio. What program am I suppose to use to programm the altera DE2? Is it Nios IDE? Do I have to use SOPB-builder? I am supposed to use i2c.  

 Sorry, I don't have any experience with altera. That's why I have this stupid questions.

[Altera_Forum]

I suppose this is for a university project so I do not know what you are supposed to use by your instructor. 

Do you already have a .sof file with all the necessary firmware? (if yes, the nios2 ide should have a button to call the nios programmer probably there is a thunder drawn on... but you can use Quartus II and press the button with a cable depicted on it near the one with the report sheet... or use the nios2-configure-sof from command line in the Nios2 EDS shell) Or are you supposed to produce an FPGA project? (this is the case to use the SOPC Builder) In both cases I suggest to start reading some kind of data sheet about the I2C core you will use.  No experience with Altera? If you used the others with the letter between z and c on us keyboards... they aren't so different... in downloading the firmware on a Dev-kit I mean...

[Altera_Forum]

For host PC side, 

There is an another way. You can use JAVA to communicate with FPGA(if you are familiar with JAVA) You should be able to find JAVA API document at nios wiki   For NIOS2 CPU,  I think there is not much choice. Use NIOS-IDE or NIOS-studio to program code for NIOS2 CPU in C/C++