I do not know if you are aware of this new plug-in for Sketchup. It is very impressive and is the missing link in creating a realistic landscape using 3D components without being hindered by the memory overhead that eventually cripples Sketchup. Nothing is actually created in the Sketchup file per se (although it can be assuming you have the computing power to handle it).
I confess to being lost by the jargon related to ‘proxies’ but I assume you guys know what this means. How it works is that the 3D geometry is shown only as simple wireframe in (what I think is a pseudo-Sketchup window). When you have scattered the components and tweaked all densities and fall-off etc you can simply send this information straight to selected render engines. According to the developers of Skatter the support for the Skatter plug-in comes directly from the developers of the render engines themselves and not from Skatter.
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Proxy Components
Use Proxy Components to replace components in your SketchUp model for faster processing and full quality rendering
The low poly version can be used while creating your model, setting up views and then you can switch to the high poly version when creating renderings. Models with LOW-POLY, Proxy Components, are much faster to work with, although the quality of the image is lower while the LOW-POLY layers are selected.
For SketchUp renderings, you can turn on the HI-POLY layers, save the image, and then restore the LOW_POLY layers.
Photorealistic renderers such as IRender nXt will automatically extract and use the HI-POLY layers without having to take the time to turn them on and off inside of SketchUp.
Here is an example of replacing a table and chairs with a Proxy Component.
Note, you can select either wire frame, or a criss-cross set of images,
Select Component and Select desired settings.
Here is the component displayed as a criss-cross proxy object
Right click again to restore the full component