@Aram
Not passing geometry to other tools in Max makes no sense, especially since you provide a way to convert Scatter instance to Max instances. Please just make sure it's passing its output internally, no need for additional scripts then.
I am not sure what you mean. What I was saying, is that e.g. array modifier is placing the geometry as-is, and it can be readily converted to editable mesh/poly. Scattering plugins on the other hand, place/show instances in the viewport, generate mesh on the render time, there is no readily available/interactive geometry to be converted. In fact, not even full mesh display scatter can be converted to editable poly. And when listening the maxscript when converting scatter geometry into max, it actually reads the data (transform) of the instances and creates the instances one by one. That is another reason why it can take very long times to do the conversions, not mentioning the display of high poly meshes in the viewport.
I think if a user needs/wants to convert a scatter object to a mesh he's probably aware of the mesh polycount, there is no need to 'protect' him from a wrong choice if the choice was a deliberate decision or needed for whatever reason in the first place.
If the mesh is shown in the viewport it already *exists* as a mesh, Corona is just not passing the data internally (Frood is hopefully proving me wrong with his script above, didn't test).
I guess the story went like this:
1. Corona develops a Scatter plugin, doesn't add passing geometry data internally because of either being overly protective (Scatter needs to be purchased/installed) or because no one thought of it.
2. Users request an option to convert to Max instances, it is added. Because of that, no one thinks passing geometry internally is needed anymore so it's left in that state.
We might have valid ideas and requests that are not making sense for developers/support. A user might have to hand out his scene to another studio that doesn't use Corona. Or I might want to convert all my Scatter objects because I know I'm going to have to re-render the scene in the coming years and I don't want to lose the scene's content to whatever the future holds for me as a cllient or Corona as a software/company. There are many reasons why I might want to use meshes or need them.
Also, not everyone has access to latest Max tools like Array - for example, I personally don't as I didn't go with the SAAS licensing for Max and am stuck with Max 2022.