1. A method for detecting objects in an image, comprising: a) receiving magnitude and orientation values for each pixel in an image; b) assigning each pixel to one of a predetermined number of orientation bins based on the orientation value of each pixel; c) determining, for a first pixel, a maximum of all the pixel magnitude values for each orientation bin in a predetermined region surrounding the first pixel; d) summing the maximum pixel magnitude values for each of the orientation bins in the predetermined region surrounding the first pixel; e) assigning the sum to the first pixel; and f) repeating steps c), d) and e) for all the pixels in the image.