Vectorized moving window on 2D array in numpy

I am apply an operation on a moving window of constant size across a 2D array. Is there an efficient vectorize-like operation I can implement to do this without looping in Python? My current structure looks something like this

 for i in range(1,xmax-1):
     for j in range(1,ymax-1):
        out[i][j] = f(in[i][j],in[i+1][j],in[i-1][j],in[i][j+1],in[i][j-1],...)

The comments that eat left in this question allude to the possibility of vectorizing this operation this, but without further details vectorized indexing/slicing in numpy/scipy?