Currently php doesn't have support to create images from bmp sources, this is a small function that solves that problem...extracted from php docs forums (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imagecreate.php#53879)

imagecreatefrombmp.php

	public function ImageCreateFromBMP($p_sFile)
	{	$file    =    fopen($p_sFile,"rb");
		$read    =    fread($file,10);
		while(!feof($file)&&($read<>""))
			$read    .=    fread($file,1024);
		$temp    =    unpack("H*",$read);
		$hex    =    $temp[1];
		$header    =    substr($hex,0,108);
		if (substr($header,0,4)=="424d")
		{
			$header_parts    =    str_split($header,2);
			$width            =    hexdec($header_parts[19].$header_parts[18]);
			$height            =    hexdec($header_parts[23].$header_parts[22]);
			unset($header_parts);
		}
		$x                =    0;
		$y                =    1;
		$image            =    imagecreatetruecolor($width,$height);
		$body            =    substr($hex,108);
		$body_size        =    (strlen($body)/2);
		$header_size    =    ($width*$height);
		$usePadding        =    ($body_size>($header_size*3)+4);
		for ($i=0;$i<$body_size;$i+=3)
		{
			if ($x>=$width)
			{
				if ($usePadding)
					$i    +=    $width%4;
				$x    =    0;
				$y++;
				if ($y>$height)
					break;
			}
			$i_pos    =    $i*2;
			$r        =    hexdec($body[$i_pos+4].$body[$i_pos+5]);
			$g        =    hexdec($body[$i_pos+2].$body[$i_pos+3]);
			$b        =    hexdec($body[$i_pos].$body[$i_pos+1]);
			$color    =    imagecolorallocate($image,$r,$g,$b);
			imagesetpixel($image,$x,$height-$y,$color);
			$x++;
		}
		unset($body);
		return $image;
	}