[GRASSLIST:3205] GRASS-Python, or, Alber's algorithm?

[RJ]

Hello GRASS users,
My only GIS need is very specific, but, so far, confounding.
I've been trying for a while to find software or an algorithm to convert an
Alber's conical equal-area NLCD file to lat/long raster so that it can be
registered with the San Diego area DEM.
The DEM is programmatically very easy to work with and I have written a few
small GUI utilities that use it; the goal is for my program (in wxPython) to
be able to look up both elevation and land use with the simple
lat/long-row/column correspondence of the DEM.
Is there a GRASS-Python binding for reprojection/translation, or at least a
class/method that I could learn the algorithm from?
So, essentially, how does one calculate the lat/long position of a given
NCLD pixel or byte offset?

None of the free/shareware software that I have installed (10+) will do the
raster file conversion, and I would prefer to use the algoritm anyway.
Web-based info on the algorithms is very sparse.

Any help or pointers to sources would be greatly appreciated!

Ray Schumacher

"Dammit Jim, I'm a Python programmer, not a GIS Guru!"
[Bones, episode #74]