Others have provided details about how it works. I suggest zooming way in on that image and you'll start 'breaking though' the surface and that'll help you get an idea of how it works. Important thing is there is no defined geometric surface ("mesh"). Also important to know is that it's very, very hard to get a good splat without taking a ton of photos at different angles. It's also really, really easy to create a crappy looking splat. But when it's done right, it's a marvel

I don't know, there's plenty of models these days that generate good splats just from objects at home.

I took maybe 10 pictures of a model I built and threw it at my 3060 during dinner and it came out quite nice.

When you say its very very hard to create a good splat, what do you mean? And what is good? I would say that strawberry is very detailed and its a good splat. I also kind of like the way some of the 'rougher' splats look. I feel like they'd work well in a car racing simulator.