This paper describes an innovative technique, the gradient pattern analysis (GPA), for analysing spatially extended dynamics. The measures obtained from GPA are based on the spatio-temporal correlations between large and small amplitude fluctuations of the structure represented as a dynamical gradient pattern. By means of four gradient moments it is possible to quantify the relative fluctuations and scaling coherence at a dynamical numerical lattice and this is a set of proper measures of the pattern complexity and equilibrium. The GPA technique is applied for the first time in 3D-simulated molecular chains with the objective of characterizing small symmetry breaking, amplitude and phase disorder due to spatio-temporal fluctuations driven by the spatially extended dynamics of a relaxation regime.
