Rendering stack of 2D images as a 3D object? I have a stack of 2D images that I would like to render as a 3D object.  Essentially, each image is a slice of a 3D object such that, if stacked along the z-axis, would make a 3D object.

EDIT 

I want to maintain the color of the image while making black transparent, like in the model below.  I have a stack of images that (when stacked) look like that model.



EDIT 2

I would like an actual 3D model.  I couldn't get the voxel texturing to work.  Blender didn't seem to like the fact that there was color.  Below is an example of one of the slices:



Things I've tried/ruled out:


Voxel texturing of an object (I'd like it to be a 3D model, I also couldn't figure out how to color this)
Surface modeling (this doesn't preserve internal structure (duh) but also doesn't preserve color)
Import images as planes (this was suggested to me and I couldn't get it to work, although it seemed like this was not the result I'm looking for either)


The help is appreciated.  I'm open to doing any and all scripting; I'm comfortable with Python and image processing but not so much with Blender.
You can definitely render a 3D voxel dataset using the built-in tools of Blender. As seen in the example below:

The basic workflow using the Blender Internal engine:


Create a Cube that's the same dimension as your voxel data ( image resolution x Voxal size , the important thing is to preserve the dimension ratios )
Create a volume material and texture for the cube.
Load in the density data as image sequence or 8bit raw data ( tested .img and .rawb formats ).
Adjust all resolution parameters ( set it to the resolution of the image you should have this information , incorrect resolution will result in distorted/cropped or even no visible result )
setup the texture to affect Density and Emissions.
Tweak color map and material properties until the data is shown nicely.


The material and texture setup :



the render result :



Using the color ramp, you can even remap the density to different colors.