about indexing first that comes to my mind is loop cascade like for (... for(... //etc. awful, i know then consider a concept of hyperrange (ND-range) range first(3, 5), second(5, 8); //etc. matrix2d setup; //2d matrix //setting up the setup matrix4d m; //say, 4d matrix m[first][second] = setup; //assign our setup to referenced //hyperrange (here a 2d matrix) don't know if it'll help but seems reasonable to me (i just thought that it's just like slicing) and to setup the 'setup' matrix we are able to write setup[0] = 1, 2, 3; //etc. setup[1] = 4, 5, 6; //note overloaded operator, setup[2] = 7, 8, 9; //etc. actually this has some connection to rutger's earlier code with recursion -- Pavel