I have a 100x200 2D array expressed as a numpy array consisting of black (0) and white (255) cells. It is a bitmap file. I then have 2D shapes (it's easiest to think of them as letters) that are also 2D black and white cells.

I know I can naively iterate through the matrix but this is going to be a 'hot' portion of my code so speed is an concern. Is there a fast way to perform this in numpy/scipy?

I looked briefly at Scipy's correlate function. I am not interested in 'fuzzy matches', only exact matches. I also looked at some academic papers but they are above my head.