1. A permanent and undistorted image in a transparent, polymeric structure, comprising: at least one image-forming substance forming the image within at least one location in the transparent structure; the image being formed by loading of the image-forming substance into a porous, polymeric receptive medium in at least one location to form the image and heating of the receptive medium at a temperature to fuse pores of the receptive medium and restructure the receptive medium into the transparent, polymeric structure, encapsulating the image in each location where the image was loaded wherein the polymeric structure has a porosity of from about 15 percent to about 99 percent.