compute the average “direction” of pixels in a grayscale image

public static Bitmap GrayScale(this Image img)
{
    var bmp = new Bitmap(img.Width, img.Height);
    using(var g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp))
    {
        var colorMatrix = new ColorMatrix(
            new[]
                {
                    new[] {.30f, .30f, .30f, 0, 0},
                    new[] {.59f, .59f, .59f, 0, 0},
                    new[] {.11f, .11f, .11f, 0, 0},
                    new[] {0, 0, 0, 1.0f, 0},
                    new[] {0, 0, 0, 0, 1.0f}
                });

        using(var attrs = new ImageAttributes())
        {
            attrs.SetColorMatrix(colorMatrix);
            g.DrawImage(img, new Rectangle(0, 0, img.Width, img.Height),
                0, 0, img.Width, img.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel, attrs);
        }
    }
    return bmp;
}

angleHistogram[src_] :=
 (
  Lx = GaussianFilter[ImageData[src], 2, {0, 1}];
  Ly = GaussianFilter[ImageData[src], 2, {1, 0}];
  angleAndOrientation =
   MapThread[{Round[ArcTan[#1, #2]*180/\[Pi]],
      Sqrt[#1^2 + #2^2]} &, {Lx, Ly}, 2];
  angleAndOrientationFlat = Flatten[angleAndOrientation, 1];
  bins = BinLists[angleAndOrientationFlat , 1, 5];
  histogram =
   Total /@ Flatten[bins[[All, All, All, 2]], {{1}, {2, 3}}];
  maxIndex = Position[histogram, Max[histogram]][[1, 1]];
  Labeled[
   Show[
    ListLinePlot[histogram, PlotRange -> All],
    Graphics[{Red, Point[{maxIndex, histogram[[maxIndex]]}]}]
    ], "Maximum at " <> ToString[maxIndex] <> "\[Degree]"]
  )

for (int rotationAngle = 0; rotationAngle < 360; rotationAngle++)
{
   int difference = 0;
   for (int i = 0; i < 360; i++)
      difference += Math.Abs(histogram1[i] - histogram2[(i+rotationAngle) % 360]);
   if (difference < bestDifferenceSoFar)
   {
      bestDifferenceSoFar = difference;
      foundRotation = rotationAngle;
   }
}