A method of visualizing an object in an image includes presenting an
image, selecting a point in an object of interest in said image,
estimating a gradient of the image in a region about the selected point,
calculating a structure tensor from the image gradient, analyzing said
structure tensor to determine a main orientation of said object of
interest, and presenting a visualization of said object of interest based
on the main orientation of the object. Various techniques can be used to
increase the robustness of the gradient estimation with respect to noise,
and to enhance the visualization of the object-of-interest presented to a
user.