Simple Newton's Method Fractal code in MATLAB

Due to popular request I've sharing some very simple Newton's Method Fractal code in MATLAB. It produces the following 800x800 image (in about 2.5 seconds on my 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro):


>> [niters,solutions] = matlab_fractal;
>> imagesc(niters)

function [niters,solutions] = matlab_fractal
%Create Newton's Method Fractal Image
%Tomasz Malisiewcz (tomasz@cmu.edu)
%http://quantombone.blogspot.com/
NITER = 40;
threshold = .001;

[xs,ys] = meshgrid(linspace(-1,1,800), linspace(-1,1,800));
solutions = xs(:) + i*ys(:);
select = 1:numel(xs);
niters = NITER*ones(numel(xs), 1);

for iteration = 1:NITER
oldi = solutions(select);

%in newton's method we have z_{i+1} = z_i - f(z_i) / f'(z_i)
solutions(select) = oldi - f(oldi) ./ fprime(oldi);

%check for convergence or NaN (division by zero)
differ = (oldi - solutions(select));
converged = abs(differ) < threshold;
problematic = isnan(differ);

niters(select(converged)) = iteration;
niters(select(problematic)) = NITER+1;
select(converged | problematic) = [];
end

niters = reshape(niters,size(xs));
solutions = reshape(solutions,size(xs));

function res = f(x)
res = (x.^2).*x - 1;

function res = fprime(x)
res = 3*x.^2;