Hello [FIRSTNAME]

This is our last newsletter of the year so we'd like to thank our contributors and sponsors for their effort and support in our first year, and to wish you Season's Greetings and a happy New Year.

We've posted nearly 1,300 news items and over 50 articles since launching 3Droundabout, and if you like to keep up to date via social networks then we've just added a Google+ page to our 'Follow us' options.

I'm ending 2011 as optimistic about stereo 3D as I started. We've had the privilege of seeing some amazing 3D content and of meeting some wonderfully creative and enthusiastic people - and when you couple that with easier to use content creation tools, not to mention an Olympic Games year, then 2012 looks very promising.

-Stella Plumbridge, Publisher

This month our articles start with digital learning architect Len Scrogan, who discusses the findings of the ground-breaking American Optometric Association's '3D in the Classroom: See Well, Learn Well' public health report. If you need a little Christmas cheer, then we have a case study from Andrew Jackson of vStream, who describes a 5D Christmas Grotto experience in Europe's largest shopping centre, Westfield. The festive theme is continued with 3DFusion's Ilya Sorokin explaining how Macy's of New York is using a 132-inch autostereoscopic video wall in its Christmas shop window display.

In his Tales from the 3D Road, Al Caudullo of 3DGuy Productions gives a spell-binding account of his trip to Mongolia to capture the Eagle Festival. Next is Steve Shaw of Light Illusion, who serves up the fourth instalment of his enlightening seven-part series on the basics of shooting S3D. Part 4 looks at interaxial distance, miniaturisation and some of the effects of convergence and focus. Have your red/cyan glasses ready! This is followed by Dmitiry Vatolin of YUVsoft, who describes the results of a test on 3D perception, with some very interesting findings. Again, have your red/cyan glasses ready, as there is a video clip at the end that you can use to test your own stereo vision.

Finally, I give some highlights of the recent 3D Stereo MEDIA event that took place in Liège, and George Whale of Queen Mary, University of London describes EMC²'s first international industry workshop that was held in Berlin and titled 'The Future of 3D Media.' Enjoy!

-Yasmin Hashmi, Managing Editor