Active X and images

Hi everyone! I need your help again!

I'm looking for an active x (or for code to copy and paste) that helps me with images and matrices. I need to acquire a greyscale bmp image and store it in a matrix (value of the element of the matrix = brightness in the corresponding point of the image).
Writing it myself would take a lot, because I know nothing of the bmp standard. Please help me with the active X! Alternatively, do you know any site where I can find information about the bmp standard?

Thank you very much, this forum is great!