Dan Davison has a brief worg tutorial on using babel with octave at http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-octave-matlab.html
Amongst other things, he offers the following example block for producing a figure: #+begin_src octave :output file :file chart.png figure( 1, "visible", "off" ); sombrero; print -dpng chart.png #+end_src #+results: [[file:chart.png]] The figure seems to be (briefly) created (it pops up on my screen if I change 'figure( 1, "visible", "off" );' to 'figure( 1, "visible", "on");'; also the code provided does the right thing in the octave interpreter). However, rather than delivering the png figure, the file chart.png consists solely of the string "/usr/share/octave/packages/3.2". I'm not sure where this string is coming from: it's *not* part of the stuff that octave writes to stdout when the interpreter is invoked (my first guess). I suspect that the options that need to be offered on the #+begin_src line have changed somehow since that worg page was last updated at the end of April of this year, but don't really know. Help! -Ethan -- Ethan Ligon, Associate Professor Agricultural & Resource Economics University of California, Berkeley