The smoothing function I'm using can give an interesting dissolution effect as
well as "free" iterations, and I attached an image to illustrate this.

The iteration level of the power-8 mandelbulb shown varies smoothly from two at
the bottom to six at the top, though the iterating function never went beyond
the four iterations shown in the middle.  The return value after four iterations
can be used to generate a reasonably accurate isosurface of up to about five
iterations.  The number of "free" iterations increases with the number of actual
iterations (the max_iteration parameter).

Beyond those accurate "free" iterations, the smoothing function returns values
that can be used for the interesting dissolution effect seen toward the top.

On another note, I'm satisfied enough with the function to recode it in C++ and
compile it into the current POV-Ray beta.  Preliminary results indicate about a
5-6x speedup over the recursive SDL version.  After a bit more testing I'll post
the patch to the appropriate newsgroup.

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