Can we have static method to set DB object to VIewModel object in c# asp.net mvc app

Question

I'm using Asp.Net MVC,C#,EF 6 CodeFirst in my project. In some Views I need display properties from more than one entity, for that i have created ViewModel. Now to map ViewModel to Model(Database object) instead of using AutoMapper (Object Mapper's), I'm trying to implement my own way. In ViewModel class I have created static method named GetViewModel() and mapping objects from Model to view model. Can i use like that. Is it good for performance or will it create any issue. Since it is web application.?

public class CustomerViewModel
{       
    public int CustomerId { get; set; }    
    public string CustomerName { get; set; }    
    public string Locations{ get; set; }  

    public static CustomerViewModel GetCustomerWithFullAddress(Customer customer)
    {
        try
        {
            CustomerViewModel viewModel = new CustomerViewModel();
            viewModel.CustomerId = customer.CustomerId;
            viewModel.CustomerName = customer.CustomerName;
            foreach(Address address in customer.Addresses){ 
                viewModel.Locations = viewModel.Locations +"," + address.Country;                                                
            }
            return viewModel;
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {                
            throw ex;
        }
    }

}

Then in controller I can access like this .

 Customer customer= db.Customer.Where(x => x.CustomerId == 1).FirstOrDefault();
 CustomerViewModel response = CustomerViewModel.GetViewModel(customer);

Answer 1

AutoMapper is not slow, assuming that the definition of the mappings is in the constructor, which happens once in a call to a class when it is being initialized. You can try adding a stopwatch that logs the time to trace, to really determine if it is "too slow".

Answer 2

It is a perfectly good way to map your model to a view model. So go ahead and use it.