@Mark Sc - this is an interesting piece of code. Given that
>> x = (1:npoint)
x =
1 2 3 4 5
and that
>> y = (npoint-1)*(0:nelments-1).'
y =
0
4
8
we are trying to add a 1x5 matrix with a 3x1 matrix with the output being a 3x5. Looking at the plus for 2-D inputs, if one input is a column vector, and the other is a row vector then your output (in this case) will be that 3x5 matrix where we add 0 to each element of x to get the first row of the new matrix, 4 to each element of x to get the second row of the new matrix, and 8 to each element of x to get the third row.
>> x + y
ans =
1 2 3 4 5
5 6 7 8 9
9 10 11 12 13
