to extract a feature vector from an image

hi all,

I am currently working on a project in which I have to extract a feature vector from a sequence of images (eg. a short clip) and then use the extracted vector as an input to a neural network.

I have following doubts in that regard:

1) how to extract a feature vector from a .bmp image?

2) is a feature vector, a coulmn vector?

any help regarding these querries will be highly appreciated.. thank you very much.