I've done a file that show the basics of how the shatter tool in houdini 9.5 works, the shatter tool is just a HDA, and can be recreated by anyone, is not that hard.
Here's the file hope it helps you, and I do recommend that you get the 9.5 apprentice edition and dive into the shatter tool, it might be a bit more complex than normal because that tool tries to work for any kind, size and shape of geometry, so I has some stuff for that, the main cutting of geo is just a loop of grids with the mountain deformer applied.