Structure Tensor Orientation
A local descriptor that summarizes the dominant direction and coherence of image structure at every pixel. It is used for flow-field visualization, texture analysis and oriented smoothing, and it underlies many corner detectors.
Spot it
- 01Hue-coded flow directions
- 02Smooth streamline texture
- 03Gray where no orientation
Why it happens
Averages the outer product of the gradient with itself over a neighborhood; the eigenvector of the resulting matrix gives the dominant orientation and the eigenvalue ratio gives coherence.
Recreate it in Pixio
Image edit prompt“Visualize structure tensor orientation for this image: color every pixel by its dominant local edge direction using a smooth hue wheel, with saturation showing coherence. Strongly directional areas appear as vivid flowing color streams along the contours, while unstructured regions fade to gray. Keep the original subject and composition recognizable.”