As is shown in the pictures attached, the view distance in the console is two less than the view distance set in the game. (What I did in inoutput_changing.png in the game is setting the view distance to 17 and then setting back to 16.)

The actual view distance seems to be the number set in the game: reducing it to 2 and then gradually increasing it to 5 makes the viewable chunks gradually spread, but in the console, changing 2 to 3 and then to 4 outputs nothing (changing 4 to 5 outputs 'Changing view distance to 3, from 2').