hey a quick newbie question...

how do i pause a recursive function? i would like to use a mouse click to advance to the next recursion.

applet:
http://www.introspector.be/index.php?/applets/recursive-fracture/

source:
http://www.introspector.be/processing/recursive_fracture/applet/recursive_fracture.pde

any other comments/tips welcome.

if you really want to make it discrete, you'll probably need to break up the recursion into a "to-do" list.  (instead of a deep recursion, you build a wide list)

you'll need a storage class to keep a "region to be subdivided", then begin by seeding the list with the outermost boundary.

then on each pass through draw, you process that list *ONCE* through its initial size.  so on first pass it contains 1 item, so you subdivide it, which then adds two more items to the list (and removes the first)

on the second pass through, you process those next two items, adding four new, removing original two.  etc

you can also limit to a certain amount of processing per frame, so for example the amount to process is min(200,list.size()).  like once you're 8 levels deep and have 512 "things to do", you'd only do 300 of them per frame, (adding 600, remove 300), then do the next 300 on the next frame.  etc  (your list will grow! with this method, but will eventually catch up once recursion stops)