Question

What is the “correct” way of creating a 2D numpy “rect” array, like:

0000000000000000000
0000000000000000000
0000000000111110000
0000000000111110000
0000000000111110000
0000000000000000000

i.e. an array which has a given value inside certain bounds, or zero otherwise?

Answer 1

Just create an array of zeros and set the area you want to one.

E.g.

import numpy as np
data = np.zeros((6,18))
data[2:5, 9:14] = 1
print data

This yields:

[[ 0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.]
 [ 0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.]
 [ 0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  1.  1.  1.  1.  1.  0.  0.  0.  0.]
 [ 0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  1.  1.  1.  1.  1.  0.  0.  0.  0.]
 [ 0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  1.  1.  1.  1.  1.  0.  0.  0.  0.]
 [ 0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.  0.]]