Creating Virtual Concept Models in SketchUp - Google SketchUp Workshop: Modeling, Visualizing, and Illustrating - page 7

The building, framed at the center of the scene, was going to be rendered
in color, primarily to stress the importance of the landscaping aspects of
the project. The numerous clusters of trees were largely responsible for the
character of the spaces, and a graphic representation of this was needed.
FiG 1.2 “Clay render” model.
Stage 2: Updating the Model
Objectives : Adding elements to communicate the intentions of the
project.
Data : SketchUp components.
Tools : SketchUp and Component Spray plug-in.
At this scale and viewing angle, it was apparent that placing photorealistic 2D
trees would not make reading the project any easier and would entail long
hours of manipulation in Photoshop.
We, therefore, went for schematic 3D trees that had sufficient explicit volume
to render the image readable. However, in light of the number of elements
that we needed to place, this was going to be a complex operation: SketchUp
does not have any tools that could help in this regard.
Luckily, a Ruby script programmer has come up with a solution to get
around this constraint. Ruby plug-ins, often free and developed inde-
pendently by a dynamic community of enthusiasts, provide quick-and-
easy solutions in cases too numerous to mention and fill many of the
holes in the original program. We used the Component Spray plug-in,
which allows you to easily duplicate components across a surface using a
simple click (or across a chosen geometric shape: square, circle, etc.). The
script also includes a function that randomly changes component scale
and rotation, which gives a very natural-looking appearance to the results
of multiple copy operations. The same method was used to place the
people in the scene.