A system and method that determines the strength of an edge in a video image using a gradient of the edge in a first direction and a gradient of the edge in a second direction. The system uses the gradient in the first direction and the gradient in the second direction to approximate a distance function to determine the strength of the edge. A programmable threshold may be used in the determination, where an edge is treated like it does not exist if the distance is less than the threshold. The distance function may be an approximation of the Cartesian distance function.