How can I generate images from LaTeX without using ghostscript/ImageMagick?

Question

My question here is about generating images from LaTeX source blocks in .org files

The following source block (edited down to a simple use case) works fine and produces a .pdf, but this does not appear in the document when using org-display-inline-images.

#+header: :packages '("\\usepackage{tikz} \\usetikzlibrary{shapes.geometric, arrows} ")
#+begin_src latex :file figure.pdf :results raw file
  \begin{tikzpicture}
    \draw[red,thick,dashed] (0, 0) circle (1cm);
    \draw[blue, thick, dashed] (0.5, 0) circle (1.5cm);
    \path (-1.5,-1.5) node[]{$Test$};
    \path (2,2) node[] {$Another$};
  \end{tikzpicture}
#+end_src

Changing :file figure.pdf to :file figure.png results in a tiny image with all the content crammed in together. (CORRECTION: all the text is jammed together, without the text commands, there is nothing in the image)

If I follow one of the examples in the documentation and add the header

#+header: :imagemagick yes :iminoptions -density 600 :imoutoptions -geometry 400

I get the error message

Converting pdffile file convert -density 600 /tmp/babel-pv17K3/latex-KCde1K.pdf -geometry 400 figure.png...
convert: attempt to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy `gs' @ error/delegate.c/ExternalDelegateCommand/382.
convert: no images defined `figure.png' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3322.

I worked out that this is due to an old security issue (e.g. see here in ghostscript, and can be fixed by editing /etc/ImageMagick-7/policy.xml. I've tried it myself and the fix works. However, I'm a cautious guy, and would prefer not to edit policy.xml. So,

Question: Is there some alternative to ghostscript/ImageMagick for generating .png images in (LaTeX) org-babel code blocks?

For example, the LaTeX previews generated in org-mode come out alright, and are in .png format, it seems that these previews are generated via dvipng, see here. Is there any way to add options to dvipng via headers to make the .png images come out correctly?

I've also generated .png images from Python source blocks, using the matplotlib library, which doesn't (apparently?) use ghostscript as a backend for generating .png files.