"Cloning" row or column vectors

Use numpy.tile:

>>> tile(array([1,2,3]), (3, 1))
array([[1, 2, 3],
       [1, 2, 3],
       [1, 2, 3]])

or for repeating columns:

>>> tile(array([[1,2,3]]).transpose(), (1, 3))
array([[1, 1, 1],
       [2, 2, 2],
       [3, 3, 3]])

Let:

>>> n = 1000
>>> x = np.arange(n)
>>> reps = 10000

Zero-cost allocations

A view does not take any additional memory. Thus, these declarations are instantaneous:

# New axis
x[np.newaxis, ...]

# Broadcast to specific shape
np.broadcast_to(x, (reps, n))

Forced allocation

If you want force the contents to reside in memory:

>>> %timeit np.array(np.broadcast_to(x, (reps, n)))
10.2 ms ± 62.3 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

>>> %timeit np.repeat(x[np.newaxis, :], reps, axis=0)
9.88 ms ± 52.4 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

>>> %timeit np.tile(x, (reps, 1))
9.97 ms ± 77.3 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

All three methods are roughly the same speed.

Computation

>>> a = np.arange(reps * n).reshape(reps, n)
>>> x_tiled = np.tile(x, (reps, 1))

>>> %timeit np.broadcast_to(x, (reps, n)) * a
17.1 ms ± 284 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

>>> %timeit x[np.newaxis, :] * a
17.5 ms ± 300 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

>>> %timeit x_tiled * a
17.6 ms ± 240 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

All three methods are roughly the same speed.

---

Conclusion

If you want to replicate before a computation, consider using one of the "zero-cost allocation" methods. You won't suffer the performance penalty of "forced allocation".

First note that with numpy's broadcasting operations it's usually not necessary to duplicate rows and columns. See this and this for descriptions.

But to do this, repeat and newaxis are probably the best way

In [12]: x = array([1,2,3])

In [13]: repeat(x[:,newaxis], 3, 1)
Out[13]: 
array([[1, 1, 1],
       [2, 2, 2],
       [3, 3, 3]])

In [14]: repeat(x[newaxis,:], 3, 0)
Out[14]: 
array([[1, 2, 3],
       [1, 2, 3],
       [1, 2, 3]])

This example is for a row vector, but applying this to a column vector is hopefully obvious. repeat seems to spell this well, but you can also do it via multiplication as in your example

In [15]: x = array([[1, 2, 3]])  # note the double brackets

In [16]: (ones((3,1))*x).transpose()
Out[16]: 
array([[ 1.,  1.,  1.],
       [ 2.,  2.,  2.],
       [ 3.,  3.,  3.]])

Here's an elegant, Pythonic way to do it:

>>> array([[1,2,3],]*3)
array([[1, 2, 3],
       [1, 2, 3],
       [1, 2, 3]])

>>> array([[1,2,3],]*3).transpose()
array([[1, 1, 1],
       [2, 2, 2],
       [3, 3, 3]])

the problem with [16] seems to be that the transpose has no effect for an array. you're probably wanting a matrix instead:

>>> x = array([1,2,3])
>>> x
array([1, 2, 3])
>>> x.transpose()
array([1, 2, 3])
>>> matrix([1,2,3])
matrix([[1, 2, 3]])
>>> matrix([1,2,3]).transpose()
matrix([[1],
        [2],
        [3]])