SDK C++ creating an appearance stream to display a form

I am trying to get an image into an appearance stream. I have the image as an XObject in a form and have created a PDEForm. the STAMPR sample was my base project.. What I am doing is in snippets below. the else case if I am not testing bmp is to do an altered form of what's in the sampe, which works fine. the last thing it does is explained and shown after the first snippets.

if (pOptions->CreateAsStamps)
{
annot = PDPageAddNewAnnot(pdPage, -1, ASAtomFromString("Stamp"), &pdLocation);
}
else
{
annot = PDPageAddNewAnnot(pdPage, -1, Stamper_K, &pdLocation);
}
PDTextAnnotSetContents(annot, CurrentTickItem->Desc.c_str(), strlen(CurrentTickItem->Desc.c_str()));
cAnnotObj = PDAnnotGetCosObj(annot);
cdoc = PDDocGetCosDoc(PDPageGetDoc(pdPage));

...

cAPDictObj = CosNewDict(cdoc, false, 1L);
cNullObj = CosNewNull();

if (bTestBmp)
{
CosObj cosBmp = CreateBmpForm(CurrentTickItem->GethBmp());
CosDictPut(cAPDictObj, FaceNormal_K, cosBmp);
CosDictPutKeyString(cAnnotObj, Appearance_KStr, cAPDictObj);
}

the else case works and puts in a character with a user defined font. not portable and there are other issues, so I am trying to do a bitmap repesentation instead.

else
{
const char* sSource = CurrentTickItem->FontName.c_str();
char* sDest = sFontName;
do
{
while (*sSource == ' ')
++sSource;
} while (*sDest++ = *sSource++);

// Read in the stream for the appearance key.
memset(&buf, 0, sizeof(buf));
strcat(buf, "BT /");
strcat(buf, sFontName);
char fontSizeStr[16];
sprintf(fontSizeStr, " %.1f", CurrentTickItem->FontSize * 2.25);
strcat(buf, fontSizeStr);
strcat(buf, " Tf 0 0 TD ");

if (CurrentRoleItem != NULL)
{
char acColor[16];
itoa(CurrentRoleItem->RoleColor, acColor, 10);
CosObj oRoleColor = CosNewString(cdoc, false, acColor, strlen(acColor));
CosDictPutKeyString(cAnnotObj, "RoleColor", oRoleColor);

// they are win32 api colors, notweb colors. it's 0x0bbggrr
std::size_t blue = (CurrentRoleItem->RoleColor & 0xff0000) >> 16;
std::size_t green = (CurrentRoleItem->RoleColor & 0x00ff00) >> 8;
std::size_t red = (CurrentRoleItem->RoleColor & 0x0000ff);

float fRed = 0;
if (red > 0) fRed = red / 255.0;
float fGreen = 0;
if (green > 0) fGreen = green / 255.0;
float fBlue = 0;
if (blue > 0) fBlue = blue / 255.0;
char rgbStr[16];
sprintf(rgbStr, "%.1f %.1f %.1f rg ", fRed, fGreen, fBlue);
OutputDebugString(rgbStr);
strcat(buf, rgbStr);
}

strcat(buf, "(");
strcat(buf, CurrentTickItem->TickChar.c_str());
strcat(buf, ")Tj ET ");
// strcat(buf, "BT /STAMPR 24 Tf 10 40 TD ( abcdefg)Tj ET q 10 w 0 1 0 RG 5 5 90 90 re S Q");
s = (ASUns32)strlen(buf);
stm = ASMemStmRdOpen(buf, s);

attributesDict = CosNewDict(cdoc, false, 5);
LengthEntry = CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, s);
CosDictPutKeyString(attributesDict, Length_KStr, LengthEntry);

cStmObj = CosNewStream(cdoc, true, stm, 0, true, attributesDict, cNullObj, s);

cStmDictObj = CosStreamDict(cStmObj);

CosDictPutKeyString(cStmDictObj, "Type", CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, "XObject"));
CosDictPutKeyString(cStmDictObj, "Subtype", CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, "Form"));

CosDictPutKeyString(cStmDictObj, "FormType", CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, 1L));

//long lBoxTop = (long)((float)abs(rect->bottom - rect->top) * yPagePointsPerPixel);
//long lBoxRight = (long)((float)abs(rect->right - rect->left) * xPagePointsPerPixel);
long lBoxTop = (long)abs(rect->bottom - rect->top);
long lBoxRight = (long)abs(rect->right - rect->left);
cBBoxObj = CosNewArray(cdoc, false, 4L);
CosArrayInsert(cBBoxObj, 0L, CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, 0L)); // left
CosArrayInsert(cBBoxObj, 1L, CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, lBoxTop)); // top
CosArrayInsert(cBBoxObj, 2L, CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, lBoxRight)); // right
CosArrayInsert(cBBoxObj, 3L, CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, 0L)); // bottom
CosDictPutKeyString(cStmDictObj, "BBox", cBBoxObj);

// Create Resource dictionary for XObject.
cResObj = CosNewDict(cdoc, false, 5L);

// Add Font resource to Resources dictionary.
fontResObj = CosNewDict(cdoc, true, 1L);
fontResObj2 = CosNewDict(cdoc, true, 5L);
cObj = CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, "Font");
CosDictPutKeyString(fontResObj2, "Type", cObj);
cObj = CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, "TrueType");
CosDictPutKeyString(fontResObj2, "Subtype", cObj);
cObj = CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, CurrentTickItem->FontName.c_str());
CosDictPutKeyString(fontResObj2, "Name", cObj);
cObj = CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, sFontName);
CosDictPutKeyString(fontResObj2, "BaseFont", cObj);
//cBBoxObj = CosNewArray(cdoc, false, 4L);
//CosArrayInsert(cBBoxObj, 0L, CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, 0L)); // left
//CosArrayInsert(cBBoxObj, 1L, CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, 0L)); // top
//CosArrayInsert(cBBoxObj, 2L, CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, 0L)); // right
//CosArrayInsert(cBBoxObj, 3L, CosNewInteger(cdoc, false, 0L)); // bottom
//CosDictPutKeyString(fontResObj2, "FontBBox", cBBoxObj);
cObj = CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, "[-8 -280 995 855]");
CosDictPutKeyString(fontResObj2, "FontBBox", cObj);

CosDictPutKeyString(fontResObj, sFontName, fontResObj2);
CosDictPutKeyString(cResObj, "Font", fontResObj);

// Set up ProcSet Resources.
cProcSetObj = CosNewArray(cdoc, false, 2L);
CosArrayPut(cProcSetObj, 0L, CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, "PDF"));
CosArrayPut(cProcSetObj, 1L, CosNewNameFromString(cdoc, false, "Text"));
CosDictPutKeyString(cResObj, "ProcSet", cProcSetObj);

// Put Resources dictionary in XObject's stream dictionary.
CosDictPutKeyString(cStmDictObj, "Resources", cResObj);

// Set the stream object (now a Forms XObject) as the normal (N) key
// and add to the appearance (AP) key.
CosDictPut(cAPDictObj, FaceNormal_K, cStmObj);
CosDictPutKeyString(cAnnotObj, Appearance_KStr, cAPDictObj);
}