In a centrosymmetric ligand field, such as in octahedral complexes of transition metals, the arrangement of electrons in the d-orbital is not only limited by electron repulsion energy, but it is also related to the splitting of the orbitals due to the ligand field. This leads to many more electron configuration states than is the case for the free ion. The relative energy of the repulsion energy and splitting energy defines the high-spin and low-spin states.
Considering both weak and strong ligand fields, a Tanabe–Sugano diagram shows the energy splitting of the spectral terms with the increase of the ligand field strength. It is possible for us to understand how the energy of the different configuration states is distributed at certain ligand strengths. The restriction of the spin selection rule makes it even easier to predict the possible transitions and their relative intensity. Although they are qualitative, Tanabe–Sugano diagrams are very useful tools for analyzing UV-vis spectra: they are used to assign bands and calculate Dq values for ligand field splitting.