I'm afraid that BMP input to to3d is converted automatically to RGB, even if they are grayscale input images. If you have the latest version of the AFNI package, you could use 3dcalc to convert RGB to shorts using a command like
3calc -datum short -nscale -a rgb_dataset+orig -prefix short_dataset -expr "a"
Or you could convert your input RGB images to a byte-format PGM
before running to3d, with a csh script like so
foreach z ( *.bmp )
bmptoppm $z | ppmtopgm > ${z}.pgm
end
to3d -geomparent rgb_dataset+orig *.pgm
bob cox