Good point re: randomness but I think the term ‘right way’ in SketchUp isn’t correct as SketchUp allows for many ways to achieve similar results. That did get me thinking that a way to control the ‘Randomness’ while avoiding displacement could be to convert heightmap to mesh using ThomThom’s Bitmap to Mesh. See quick test. Not bad result for 5 mins effort…
Used this height map for my demo:
Update: Geometry count is high here but can be reduced:
