--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 2008-2012 David Bateman
+##
+## This file is part of Octave.
+##
+## Octave 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.
+##
+## Octave 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 Octave; see the file COPYING. If not, see
+## <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {} contrast (@var{x}, @var{n})
+## Return a gray colormap that maximizes the contrast in an image. The
+## returned colormap will have @var{n} rows. If @var{n} is not defined
+## then the size of the current colormap is used instead.
+## @seealso{colormap}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function map = contrast (x, n)
+
+ if (nargin == 1)
+ n = rows (colormap);
+ elseif (nargin == 2)
+ if (! isscalar (n))
+ error ("contrast: N must be a scalar");
+ endif
+ else
+ print_usage ();
+ endif
+
+ x = x(:);
+ minx = min (x);
+ map = find (diff (sort ([round(n * ((x - minx) ./ (max(x) - minx))); [0:n]'])));
+ minm = min (map);
+ map = (map - minm) ./ (max (map) - minm);
+ map = [map, map, map];
+endfunction
+
+%!assert (contrast(1:100,10),[([0:9]/9)',([0:9]/9)',([0:9]/9)'],1e-10)
+%!demo
+%! image (reshape (1:100, 10, 10))
+%! colormap (contrast (1:100,10))