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Tree localization in point clouds of forest scenes is critical in the forest inventory. Most of the existing methods proposed for TLS forest data are based on model fitting or point-wise features which are time-consuming, sensitive to data incompleteness and complex tree structures. Furthermore, these methods often require lots of preprocessing such as ground filtering and noise removal. The fast and easy-to-use top-based methods that are widely applied in processing ALS point clouds are not applicable in localizing trees in TLS point clouds due to the data incompleteness and complex canopy structures. The objective of this study is to make the top-based methods applicable to TLS forest point clouds. To this end, a novel point cloud transformation is presented, which enhances the visual salience of tree instances and makes the top-based methods adapting to TLS forest scenes. The input for the proposed method is the raw point clouds and no other pre-processing steps are needed. The new method is tested on an international benchmark and the experimental results demonstrate its necessity and effectiveness. Finally, the proposed method has the potential to benefit other object localization tasks in different scenes based on detailed analysis and tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]