Abstract: Currently most quad mesh simplification and optimization methods are based on the extension of triangle mesh simplification and optimization locally.The quality of the structure of a quad mesh is affected by its helical strips, and adjusting these helical strips can significantly improve the quality of the quad mesh in topological structure.In paper the relationship and properties of helical strips and irregular vertices in quad mesh are discussed.Based on this analysis, ageneral algorithm which searches helical strips in quad mesh is proposed.Experimental results show that it can effectively find helical strips and optimizing complex quad mesh.