I have created an array thusly:

import numpy as np
data = np.zeros( (512,512,3), dtype=np.uint8)
data[256,256] = [255,0,0]

What I want this to do is display a single red dot in the center of a 512×512 image. (At least to begin with… I think I can figure out the rest from there)

You could use PIL to create (and display) an image:

from PIL import Image
import numpy as np

w, h = 512, 512
data = np.zeros((h, w, 3), dtype=np.uint8)
data[0:256, 0:256] = [255, 0, 0] # red patch in upper left
img = Image.fromarray(data, 'RGB')
img.save('my.png')
img.show()

The following should work:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.imshow(data, interpolation='nearest')
plt.show()

If you are using Jupyter notebook/lab, use this inline command before importing matplotlib:

%matplotlib inline 

Shortest path is to use scipy, like this:

from scipy.misc import toimage
toimage(data).show()

This requires PIL or Pillow to be installed as well.

A similar approach also requiring PIL or Pillow but which may invoke a different viewer is:

from scipy.misc import imshow
imshow(data)

Using pygame, you can open a window, get the surface as an array of pixels, and manipulate as you want from there. You’ll need to copy your numpy array into the surface array, however, which will be much slower than doing actual graphics operations on the pygame surfaces themselves.

How to show images stored in numpy array with example (works in Jupyter notebook)

I know there are simpler answers but this one will give you understanding of how images are actually drawn from a numpy array.

Load example

from sklearn.datasets import load_digits
digits = load_digits()
digits.images.shape   #this will give you (1797, 8, 8). 1797 images, each 8 x 8 in size

Display array of one image

digits.images[0]
array([[ 0.,  0.,  5., 13.,  9.,  1.,  0.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  0., 13., 15., 10., 15.,  5.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  3., 15.,  2.,  0., 11.,  8.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  4., 12.,  0.,  0.,  8.,  8.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  5.,  8.,  0.,  0.,  9.,  8.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  4., 11.,  0.,  1., 12.,  7.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  2., 14.,  5., 10., 12.,  0.,  0.],
       [ 0.,  0.,  6., 13., 10.,  0.,  0.,  0.]])

Create empty 10 x 10 subplots for visualizing 100 images

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(10,10, figsize=(8,8))

Plotting 100 images

for i,ax in enumerate(axes.flat):
    ax.imshow(digits.images[i])

Result:

What does axes.flat do? It creates a numpy enumerator so you can iterate over axis in order to draw objects on them. Example:

import numpy as np
x = np.arange(6).reshape(2,3)
x.flat
for item in (x.flat):
    print (item, end=' ')

Using pillow’s fromarray, for example:

from PIL import Image
from numpy import *

im = array(Image.open('image.jpg'))
Image.fromarray(im).show()

The Python Imaging Library can display images using Numpy arrays. Take a look at this page for sample code:

• Convert Between Numerical Arrays and PIL Image Objects

EDIT: As the note on the bottom of that page says, you should check the latest release notes which make this much simpler:

http://effbot.org/zone/pil-changes-116.htm

Supplement for doing so with matplotlib. I found it handy doing computer vision tasks. Let’s say you got data with dtype = int32

from matplotlib import pyplot as plot
import numpy as np

fig = plot.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1)
# make sure your data is in H W C, otherwise you can change it by
# data = data.transpose((_, _, _))
data = np.zeros((512,512,3), dtype=np.int32)
data[256,256] = [255,0,0]
ax.imshow(data.astype(np.uint8))