--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/main/image/inst/showcmap.m	Tue Nov 20 16:12:15 2012 +0000
@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+## Copyright (c) 2012 Juan Pablo Carbajal
+##
+## This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+## it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+## the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
+## (at your option) any later version.
+##
+## This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+## but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+## GNU General Public License for more details.
+##
+## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+## along with this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {@var{h} =} showcmap (@var{cmap})
+##  Shows a colormap in the current figure
+##
+## @var{cmap} is a string with the name of the colormap or a matrix
+## representing a colormap.
+## The function returns the current colormap in @var{h}.
+##
+## @seealso{colormap}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: Juan Pablo Carbajal <ajuanpi+dev@gmail.com>
+
+function h = showcmap (cmap)
+
+  if (nargin != 1)
+    print_usage ();
+  endif
+
+
+  if ischar (cmap)
+
+    if !compare_versions (version,"3.7.0",">=")
+      error ("Octave:version", ...
+             ["showcmap: string arguments are supported with " ...
+              "GNU Octave 3.7.0 or higher."]);
+    endif
+
+    if !ismember (cmap, colormap ("list"))
+    error ("Octave:invalid-input-arg",
+      "showcmap: input must be the name of a exisiting colormap");
+    endif
+
+    N = 64;
+    image (1:N, linspace (0, 1, N), repmat ((1:N)', 1, N));
+    axis ([1, N, 0, 1], "ticy", "xy");
+    eval (["colormap (" cmap "(N))"]);
+
+  else
+
+    if !iscolormap (cmap)
+      error ("Octave:invalid-input-arg",
+        "showcmap: input must be a valid colormap");
+    endif
+
+    N = size (cmap,1);
+    image (1:N, linspace (0, 1, N), repmat ((1:N)', 1, N));
+    axis ([1, N, 0, 1], "ticy", "xy");
+    colormap (cmap);
+
+  endif
+
+  h = get (gcf, "colormap");
+
+endfunction
+
+%!error showcmap ("showcmap")
+%!error showcmap ([1 2 3 4])
+
+%!demo
+%! showcmap ("hot")
+%! figure ()
+%! showcmap (hot(6))