How to get imshow with linear interpolation?

A bitmap image shown with imshow or imagesc will be nearest-neighbour interpolated (if truesize isn't possible), which for most purposes seems a bad choice. What I'd like, is to have a function that does exactly the same as these two, but with linear interpolation.

I know that there are ways around this with imresize, but most of the times it'll be a hassle (for me).

As an example: A guide GUI with multiple axes each with bitmap data. Now if the window is resized it'll result in strong artefacts (due to the NN downsampling).

If there's a simple way, ideally just another function wrapping imshow, I'd tremendously appreciate seeing that.

[Walter Roberson]

Is this for up sampling to show a small image in a large axes, or is it down sampling to show a large image in a small axes?

[blankres]

Usually it'd be downsampling, but in both cases I'd prefer linear interpolation.

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't get the notification mail.