Different from many existing studies on the paranetrization of vortices, we investigate the effectiveness of two new parameters for identifying the vortex stretching and vortex relaxing mechanisms. These parameters are invariants and identify three-dimensional flow structures only, i.e. they diminish in two-dimensional flows. This is also unlike the existing vortex identification approaches which deliver information in two-dimensional flows. The present proposals have been successfully applied to identify the stretching and relaxing vortices in compressible mixing layers and natural convection flows.