Yes, but you will have to convert it to the other format yourself.  It takes 3 nested for loops to convert it which is what Axe does internally when you use the tile-map absorption option.

That's not a bad idea actually.  It would be really useful in some situations to import data from entire programs or appvars like one of those Axe midi tracks for example.  And most of the code is already written, I would only have to remove the check for pictures and change it to a check for any valid object.  But I don't think anything else will use the r modifier for tilemap importing other than pictures because I can't think of a situation where that would be useful.