MATLAB: How to create a grid of evenly spaced ones in a matrix of zeros

evenlygridMATLABmatrixmeshgridonesspacedzeros

So essentially I want a grid looking something like this: 
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
or something similar, with flexibility in the number of ones and how they're distributed, and the size of the matrix.
This is what I currently have:
u = 1:500; % size of matrix
v = u;
[u, v] = meshgrid(u, v);
N_points = 5; %number of points in each axis
point_array = zeros(size(u));
pos_x = round(size(u,1)/2) + separation_x * (-(N_points-1)/2:(N_points-1)/2); % positioning of points
pos_y = round(size(u,2)/2) + separation_y * (-(N_points-1)/2:(N_points-1)/2);
[pos_x,pos_y] = meshgrid(pos_x,pos_y);
point_array(sub2ind(size(point_array),pos_x,pos_y)) = 1; % converts x/y coordinates of chosen points into index of corresponding point in matrix, sets equal to 1.
Is there a more compact or straightforward way to achieve this?

Best Answer

"Is there a more compact or straightforward way to achieve this?"
Definitively!
%demo data
size_array = 500;
npoints = 15;
point_array = zeros(size_array);    %create array full of zeros
locations = linspace(0, size_array, npoints+1);  %calculate location with one more point to get the spacing right
locations = round(locations(2:end) - locations(2)/2);  %then remove first point (0) and offset by half the distance to 2nd point
point_array(locations, locations) = 1;  %and set these locations to 1
%for visualisation
imagesc(point_array); axis('square'); colormap(gray)
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