The buzz about 3D printing comes with the usual pontification that occurs every time a new technology passes the novelty stage into the realm where real money can be made. Canalys, a market research firm, predicts the global market for 3D printers and services will grow from $2.5 billion in 2013 to $16.2 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 45.7%.

Thirty-two years after Charles Hullcreated the first functional 3D printer, pundits are hailing the "new" technology as everything from disruptive innovation to the next Industrial Revolution. But you won't find me badmouthing the Johnny-come-lately labels. Personally, I believe the current descriptions vastly underestimate the potential impact of 3D printing technology and its inevitable derivative technologies.

Imagine if, around 3500 BC, someone applied these labels to the invention of the wheel? In fact, the first wheels were used in the manufacture of pottery, i.e. the potter's wheel. It was 300 years later that wheels were affixed to a box with handles to make the first cart, and 1,600 years after that when the Egyptians streamlined the sluggish cart into a military grade chariot that helped transform them into one of the most formidable armies in the ancient world. What potter would have possibly imagined world domination?