Might be nice to make use of a linear algebra library such as eigen. I've typically just made use of STL containers for different objects.
This is potentially slightly overkill for my use cases but it could be a nice thing to explore.
I make use of some 2D grid like structures which I have traditionally used std::vectorstd::vector> to interface with. It may be nicer to use an Eigen::Matrix instead which allows for more flexibility in accessing elements in this scenario.