Problem to read from array

[vostrushka at gmail.com]

Hi,
I have a file with one parameter per line:
a1
b1
c1
a2
b2
c2
a3
b3
c3
...
The parameters are lines of characters (not numbers)

I need to load it to 2D array for further manipulations.
So far I managed to upload this file into 1D array:

ParametersRaw = []
with open(file1) as fh:
    ParametersRaw = fh.readlines()
fh.close()

NumberOfColumns = 7
NumberOfRows = len(ParametersRaw)/NumberOfColumns

Parameters = [[],[]]
i=0
j=0
k=0
while (i < NumberOfRows):
    while (j < NumberOfColumns):
        k = (i*NumberOfColumns)+j
        Parameters[i][j] = ParametersRaw[k]
        j = j + 1
    i = i + 1
    j = 0

it fails at the line "Parameters[i][j] = ParametersRaw[k]" with error:

IndexError: index 0 is out of bounds for axis 0 with size 0

In case of populating 1D array I would use append() method.
But in case of 2D I am lost of how append() can be applied.
Could some one help newbie.

CU