Turing structures appear naturally and they are demonstrated under different spatial configurations such as stripes and spots as well as mixed states. The traditional tool to characterize these patterns is the Fourier transformation, which accounts for the spatial wavelength, but it fails to discriminate among different spatial configurations or mixed states. In this paper, we propose a parameter that clearly differentiates the different spatial configurations. As an application, we considered the transitions induced by an external forcing in a reaction-diffusion system although the results are straightforwardly extended to different problems with similar topologies. The method was also successfully tested on a temporally evolving pattern.