How to create a 2D “rect” array (square block of 1's, else 0's) in numpy?

Question

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

0000000000000000000
0000000000000000000
0000000000111110000
0000000000111110000
0000000000111110000
0000000000000000000

ie 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.

Eg

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.]]