A new approach for signal processing and parameter measurement is reported. This new concept uses Bragg cells and photorefractive materials in a time‐integrating structure to compute correlation values. It uses the same Bragg cell for both computing correlations and performing the final signal weighting and summation. The resulting structure not only provides a powerful signal processing method, it leads to a new measurement technique which is useful in measuring the characteristics of photorefractive materials. This latter application is the subject of this paper. Direct measurement of the photorefractive grating phase is demonstrated and the results are used to show the dependence of grating phase on intensity. Also a method for generating moving gratings electronically (without moving mirrors) is proposed and demonstrated. Amplitude and phase measurements are reported for the fringes produced by such an electronically generated moving grating.