Among many design processes such as learning, storing, retrieving and applying, the process that learns design knowledge is very important for producing creative results that solve design purposes in design computations. The computer should have the ability similar to human in learning design knowledge. It should recognize not only physical properties but also high level design knowledge constructed from the first level physical properties. The high level design knowledge are recognised in terms of isometric translation relationships. This paper explains properties of isometric translation and methods how the computer can recognize high level shape design knowledge using shape pattern representation.