Is 3D the future of printers?

Venture capital firm Foundry Group yesterday announced that it has led a $10 million investment in MakerBot Industries, a Brooklyn-based developer of low-cost commercial 3D printers. It’s the team that first got notice for building something called the Cupcake, a user-assembled 3D printer that cost only around $1,000 (compared to the $10k-$500k price-tag for other 3D printers).

Foundry’s Brad Feld announced the deal on his firm’s blog yesterday, and I sent him a few questions about the deal via email (he was in Tuscany, so our phone timing didn’t match up). Here were my questions and his replies:

Fortune: Do you believe that 3D technology will be considered standard for consumer printers 10 years from now?

Feld: I think 3D printers will be commonplace in a decade and will be a broad-based consumer product. I don’t know if it’ll be integrated with a 2D printer as the technology is very different, but it’ll be fun to see people try. I’m especially excited about a self-replicating 3D printer – won’t that be cool. It’s just another step in the process of the machines taking over.

You suggest in your blog post that the Cupcake might be like the Healthkit H8 or Altair 8800 — early PCs that laid groundwork for Apple II. But it was Apple that ultimately benefited the most in that exchange. Do you envision MakerBot as a company that will license out its tech, or one that will try to also become a device manufacturer? And, if the 3D trend takes hold, what will differentiate MakerBot from everyone else?

The Cupcake was definitely a first generation product. The existing product – the Thing-O-Matic – is much advanced but it’s still a kit product that has to be assembled, although you can now buy a fully assembled one. The next generation will be a full assembled printer. MakerBot will continue to be a device manufacturer.

Apple benefited in the exchange because it was a superior product created by two remarkable entrepreneurs who were obsessed with their creation. If you look at the founders of MakerBot, they have the same intensity, genius, and drive of Woz / Jobs around the creation of Apple and the personal computer industry. If you look at the Healthkit history, it was sold from Schlumberger to Zenith around the time of the H8 and had an uninspiring heritage from that point forward. The real winner from MITS (Altair) was Microsoft (Gates/Allen). So – while I can’t predict the future, I’m delighted to bet on [MakerBot founders] Bre, Zack, and Adam.

3D television sales have been much slower than originally projected. Do you think 3D is a technology whose new-found ubiquity is outpacing consumer demand? Either way, what’s the marketing pitch to consumers?

I don’t think there’s any relationship between 3D TV and 3D printing – they are two entirely different things. I can barely see in 2D – even with my glasses – so I’ve never really understood 3D TV (plus most TV bores me anyway). 3D printing is a physically tactile experience that – once you’ve experienced a 3D printer printing out something you’ve created with a simple CAD program – you’ll never look back. Re: the consumer marketing pitch – give us time – you’ll see it with the next version.

Did you see other startups in this space, or was MakerBot alone?

I poked around a lot but didn’t see anyone that was anywhere close to where the MakerBot team is.

What follows is a video of MakerBot sending Steven Colbert’s head into space (yes, you read that correctly):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53C-43XiuXM]