activex and PHP on linux

I'm running a website (www.revitcity.com) on linux/PHP/MySQL and the site is
for architecture components. The compenents or objects called famlies are
uploaded by users and shared freely. The program these objects are used in
is Revit, a windows only program. So here's my question.

Currenly users must render the object and upload an image along with the
object itself. However using activex controls, windows can access an
imbedded thumbnail in the files. Can I access these imbedded thumbnails on a
PHP/Linux system so that our users don't have to render and upload the
images as well?

Jeremy