One of the areas where a stock SketchUp installation really struggles is dealing with vegetation/trees/plants/etc. It just doesn’t really have the built-in functionality to randomly scatter or place hundreds of different objects. However – this week’s plugin is designed to help create and scatter hundreds of different objects.

Where can you find it?

You can download this plugin by clicking the link below

Tool Functions

There are a lot of functions to this plugin – I’ll just give you a high level overview of some of the functionality.
Basically, what this tool does is allow you to take an object and scatter it across a line, a face, a group, etc.

It gives you the ability to control how objects are scattered, including things like randomization, translation, scale, and mirroring.
You can use areas to scatter objects along an area you define on your object.

It also comes with a content library of prebuilt items, like grass or gravel, to enable you to quickly get started modeling.

One of the really nice functions of Skatter is the render only function. Basically, this means that if you select “Render Only” as one of your options, when Skatter adds objects to your model, they will only show up when you render your model in a rendering software. This means instead of adding thousands of faces and lines to your model (and slowing it down), you can keep modeling in SketchUp and send your model directly to a rendering program to render this geometry without slowing your model down.
It’s almost impossible to get into everything this plugin does in a short plugin review, but to sum up, this is a premium plugin with premium features. It’s a complete game changer for creating renderings and presentations.

Ratings

Usefulness/Functionality – 5/5

There is just about any function you could want in a scattering plugin included. This plugin is a complete game changer for anyone that creates exterior renderings, especially designers that work with landscapes, etc.

Value – 4/5

This is definitely a premium plugin, and it’s on the spendier end of SketchUp plugins. However, whenever I look at the value of SketchUp plus plugins like this one, it’s still FAR less than you’d pay for a license to a program like 3DS Max that you’d use to work with objects like this.

Ease of Use/Documentation – 5/5

When you use this plugin, you’re immediately given a chance to download the user manual. In addition, you get a multiple email on-boarding process that give you some more information about functionality. There’s more documentation for this plugin than most.
Description

Overall score – 14/15.

Overall
This plugin is clearly a premium plugin designed for people doing in-depth work. However, it’s also a plugin that HUGELY expands SketchUp’s functionalities. Like most things, you get what you pay for, and when you pay for this plugin, what you get is definitely worth what you spend.