My scientific goal is to tackle the main challenges related to the data complexity in various domains, specifically in neuroscience. To this end, my main target is to develop novel visual methods which help neuroscientists to process, explore and filter data in a way to have a better understanding of the brain processes at various level, from cellular to anatomical.

Marco Agus was a Research Engineer in the High Performance Visualization Group (HPV) working with Professor Markus Hadwiger at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Education and Early Career

He obtained his master degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Cagliari in Italy in 1999. He has a Ph. D. in Mechanical Design from the University of Cagliari.

Before joining KAUST, Marco was a researcher at Visualization and Virtual Reality Group in the Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia (CRS4) in Italy. After that in 2007, he moved to the Visual Computing Group at CRS4 as an Expert Researcher. 

Research Interest

Marco's research interests are in various visual computing subjects such as large model rendering and interactive exploration on different display setups, applications of virtual reality technology, haptic and visual simulation applied to various application domains, surgical training, digital cultural heritage, and neuroscience connectome data analysis.

Education Profile

  • M. Sc., Electronic Engineering, University of Cagliari, Italy,1999
  • Ph.D., Mechanical design, University of Cagliari, Italy, 2004

Professional Memberships

  • ​Eurographics
  • IEEE
  • ACM

Awards and Distinctions

  • Best paper Digital Heritage, Spain, 2015
  • Best student paper IEEE Haptics, Chicago, 2004
  • Best paper IEEE Virtual Reality, Orlando, 2002 

Selected Publications

Agus, M., Boges, D., Gagnon, N., Magistretti, P. J., Hadwiger, M., & Calí, C. (2018). GLAM: Glycogen-derived Lactate Absorption Map for visual analysis of dense and sparse surface reconstructions of rodent brain structures on desktop systems and virtual environments. Computers & Graphics, 74, 85–98. doi:10.1016/j.cag.2018.04.007
Agus, M., Marton, F., Bettio, F., Hadwiger, M., & Gobbetti, E. (2017). Data-Driven Analysis of Virtual 3D Exploration of a Large Sculpture Collection in Real-World Museum Exhibitions. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 11(1), 1–20. doi:10.1145/3099618
Hadwiger, M., Al-Awami, A. K., Beyer, J., Agus, M., & Pfister, H. (2018). SparseLeap: Efficient Empty Space Skipping for Large-Scale Volume Rendering. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 24(1), 974–983. doi:10.1109/tvcg.2017.2744238