A world-famous cobbled street trodden by millions of tourists will soon be viewable to anyone around the world.

A group is to be established to photograph parts of Haworth, including Main Street, to form a 3D computerised tour of the village, which will be accessible on the Internet.

The initial tour will be on display at Haworth Carnival on August 25. If successful the tours may be expanded to Cross Roads and Stanbury.

Parish councillor Ian Palmer, who will be organising the project, said: "We are doing a pilot project but we are not yet certain of the area.

"We are likely to photograph Main Street because it is an instantly recognisable area.

"People go out with a digital camera and take photos of the area. We will photograph buildings and they go into the computer from which a model is built from the ground up.

"It is very much like what is done on Time Team, but we will create something that already exists. People can then take a virtual tour and move around the village."

He was delighted Haworth had the chance to be at the forefront of the scheme.

He added: "I think it is a great initiative. As a parish council we have a website with a lot of photos of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury anyway, so this will complement that.

"I think it is great that we have been asked to work with this project."

Yorkshire Rural Community Council (YRCC), with funding from Yorkshire Forward, will be heading the project.

Simon Harrison, of YRCC, said: "Primarily this is a community consultation tool designed around a group getting together and taking photos to download onto high-specification laptop computers which have some special software we have developed."

The program will turn the photographs into a 3D tour. People from around the world will be able to answer questionnaires and add comments. Villagers will be given their own password to make their own input.

The tour itself will be linked to a Virtual Village website, from where YRCC have developed and adapted the idea.

YRCC advertised the project to rural communities across the county and has chosen ten places to represent a geographical and social cross-section of Yorkshire. Of those, Haworth, along with Sleights in North Yorkshire, will be the first projects.

Mr Harrison added: "We hope to get a small section modelled in time for Haworth carnival. Hopefully the carnival will get a group sorted out and get the community interested.

"It is very much up to them from then on. It is totally up to the decision of the group with our direction. They then have until the end of next March to get everything completed."

Anybody who wants to join the group should contact Mr Palmer on 645445. He said he was looking for a group of about four or five - experience of photography and computers was not necessary.