A system, methods and apparatus for rapidly and automatically orienting
spherical objects, such as game balls, for subsequent downstream
processing comprises a series of processing steps that can be performed
at four separate, mechanically similar (or even identical) workstations.
An imaging sub-system needs only one camera to image the spherical object
and image the work process. The method of transposing the spherical
object between work stations is simple, requiring an apparatus having
only one degree of freedom to simultaneously convey and rotate spherical
objects, and the system and method can automatically and rapidly
determine the object's spatial orientation and change the orientation as
required for downstream processing.