Another image question - using Regular ABAP not web dynpro

Question

Following Otto's awesome instructions:
1) create image field in your form (not only image!! it must be the image field)
2) load your picture in the backend
3) convert the image into XSTRING
4) create the XSTRING variable in the interface/ context, fill it with the picture data
5) bind the image field to this variable
6) enjoy
Regards, Otto
We can easily get an image to appear on a form produced from Web Dynpro ABAP using an XML interface.
However, we are having an issue doing the same using a regular ABAP report and Data Dictionary interface.
We added a new field to our DDIC structure called signature TYPE RAWSTRING (we can't define a new domain with type X since SAP doesn't allow that, but they are both Variable Length Byte Strings).
We use the exact same code to upload the same image from UNIX, we see the byte string in our variable, but no image appears on our form (using the ImageField object).
We then created a Global variable with type Xstring in our interface. We pass our binary image to the function module. Through debugging, I see that an error occurs because the gloabl variable states it's max characters is only 255.
any ideas?

Answer 1

Otto,
thanks for the replies.
I did make sure to embed the image. We tried both jpg and bmp, but neither worked.
for testing, I hardcoded this in the WD and it worked. I copied it over to our ABAP method
  DATA: lv_ds TYPE string VALUE '/sapmnt/DEV/interface/renewables/pbch-1/archive/352.bmp',
             lv_xstring TYPE xstring.
  OPEN DATASET lv_ds FOR INPUT IN BINARY MODE .
  CHECK sy-subrc = 0.
  DO 1 times.
    READ DATASET lv_ds INTO lv_xstring.
    IF sy-subrc <> 0.
      EXIT.
    ENDIF.
  ENDDO.
This gets me an Xstring field that's 1272 long.
I pass the lv_xstring field directly to the FM IMAGE field, which is defined as an Xstring in the PDF Interface
  CALL FUNCTION ls_function
    EXPORTING
      /1bcdwb/docparams  = fp_docparams
      is_scale_stng      = ls_scale_stng
      it_scale_tkti      = it_scale_tkti
      it_scale_seal      = it_scale_seal
      is_scale_tkt       = ls_scale_tkt_print
      image              = lv_xstring          " <---- pass the xstring image
    IMPORTING
      /1bcdwb/formoutput = ls_form_output
    EXCEPTIONS
      usage_error        = 1
      system_error       = 2
      internal_error     = 3
      OTHERS             = 4.
Stepping into the FM, I see that IMAGE now has the same size of 1272
In my PDF Form layout, I dragged/dropped the ImageField object on my form.
I found the IMAGE field in my Data View tab and dragged/dropped that onto the ImageField to Bind it.
I checked 'embed image data'.
I checked the form properties and the layout was set to 'Standard'. I changed it to ZCI, as well.
I know the data is coming across because I can drag/drop the image field from the Data View directly on the form as a Text Field and see the hex data come through.