new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/interpreter/plotimages.m
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+function plotimages (nm, typ)
+  bury_output ();
+  if (strcmp (nm, "plot"))
+    x = -10:0.1:10;
+    plot (x, sin (x));
+    print (strcat (nm, ".", typ), strcat ("-d", typ))    
+  elseif (strcmp (nm, "hist"))
+    hist (randn (10000, 1), 30);
+    print (strcat (nm, ".", typ), strcat ("-d", typ))    
+  elseif (strcmp (nm, "errorbar"))
+    x = 0:0.1:10;
+    y = sin (x);
+    yp =  0.1 .* randn (size (x));
+    ym = -0.1 .* randn (size (x));
+    errorbar (x, sin (x), ym, yp);
+    print (strcat (nm, ".", typ), strcat ("-d", typ))    
+  elseif (strcmp (nm, "polar"))
+    polar (0:0.1:10*pi, 0:0.1:10*pi);
+    print (strcat (nm, ".", typ), strcat ("-d", typ))    
+  elseif (strcmp (nm, "mesh"))
+    tx = ty = linspace (-8, 8, 41)';
+    [xx, yy] = meshgrid (tx, ty);
+    r = sqrt (xx .^ 2 + yy .^ 2) + eps;
+    tz = sin (r) ./ r;
+    mesh (tx, ty, tz);
+    print (strcat (nm, ".", typ), strcat ("-d", typ))    
+  elseif (strcmp (nm, "plot3"))
+    t = 0:0.1:10*pi;
+    r = linspace (0, 1, numel (t));
+    z = linspace (0, 1, numel (t));
+    plot3 (r.*sin(t), r.*cos(t), z);
+    print (strcat (nm, ".", typ), strcat ("-d", typ))    
+  else
+    error ("unrecognized plot requested");
+  endif
+  bury_output ();
+endfunction
+
+## Use this function before plotting commands and after every call to
+## print since print() resets output to stdout (unfortunately, gnpulot
+## can't pop output as it can the terminal type).
+function bury_output ()
+  f = figure (1);
+  set (f, "visible", "off");
+endfunction